Hey! No Powers!
by Gwathren
Summary: A Highlander Xmen: The Movies crossover involving a certain ancient immortal we all know and love. Complete!
1. How Methos Escaped

This is something a little different.  
  
Normally I can't even fathom a story without Forever Knight but this just occurred to me and who am I to neglect a muse when she sees fit to call. So mote it be.  
  
All righty now ::cracks knuckles:: Lets get all the legal stuff out da way.  
  
Disclaimer..uh.duh. The usual spiel will suffice.  
  
Pre-Story Anecdote: I could help but notice a familiar face in the latest Xmen 2 movie. I know I remember seeing it because I had to pick popcorn out of my hair after screaming "Methos!" out loud in the theatre. Well, of course we all know it wasn't Methos... Well how do you know that? Huh? It never said it wasn't. He's sort of a military man right?  
  
Anyway, I hope he forgives me because I know I am going to hopelessly slaughter his character. I haven't seen highlander in a looooong time.  
  
One with the show.  
  
As usual, I only plan the opening paragraph so lets both sit back and see what my fingers come up with this time!  
  
Ahem.  
  
Methos awoke with a start and gasped for air but found only water. He wretched on the cold fluid and nearly gasped again in reaction. Stopping himself and quickly reining his body under control, it took all 5000 years of accumulated patience to keep him self from sheer panic. He was trapped underground in a dark tunnel, a lovely dark tunnel which was now filling slowly with water. As he stood and blinked in the inky darkness he could feel the water creeping up to his knees. Something in the water shifted. Something that felt ominously like a body part floated past him. Methos inwardly cringed and turned his mind away from bodies and/or body chunks that were sharing the tunnel with him. He remembered the flash of light, his surprise as the pin in his grenade had miraculously lifted.  
  
Oh. So that's how he had gotten himself into this. Damn mutants.  
  
Confuscate and bebother the lot of them.  
  
Methos, get a grip.  
  
You get a grip, I think I'll go crazy now.  
  
No,. focus.  
  
But insanity is so much better. You know what will happen when there is no more air. You'll die again and again and again and again.  
  
Stop it!  
  
Wouldn't you rather just not be aware? Let's go crazy.  
  
FOCUS!!  
  
What do I know? I am at the door that's just down the tunnel to the left from the entrance. Okay. If water is coming in, that means the dam must have burst. So that means I have to use one of the emergency exits located on the upper levels. What if there are no upper levels? Worry about that when it comes.  
  
Burn that bridge when you get there,  
  
Don't count your chickens before they hatch.  
  
What did I tell you?  
  
Right, focus.  
  
Methos sloshed quickly through the frigid water. There was no light to see where he was going and he hugged the wall and struggled to remember which door led to safety.  
  
"Isn't there always supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel." He muttered sarcastically and he sloshed along.  
  
After a quick tally in his mind Methos reached a reasonable estimate of the number of passageways between him and freedom. He ran his hand along the wall and counted the doorways. One, Two Three. Turn! Up the stairs. The water was rushing quickly higher. The water lapped at his heels and he vaulted up the stairs and he sloshed forward as fast as possible. At last his hand brushed against the wheel of an exterior door. Wrapping his hands around the latch he wrenched it as hard as he could.  
  
Nothing.  
  
He tried again. His numb hands slipped and he fell into the frigid water. He stood, found the wheel again and pushed with all his might. The latch gave way a fraction and the creak echoed eerily in the quickly filling hallways. The water lapped around his waist and with a sigh, Methos surrendered to sheer terror.  
  
He has told me not to reveal what happened in those last few moments before the water closed in around his head. (I highly suspect he cried). But, somehow in those desperate last few moments he managed to undo the latch and push against the door. It wasn't until the water had completely filled the tunnel that the door finally swung open and Methos quickly realized why. Outside was completely flooded. The meager sunlight that seeped through the water illuminated ghostly swaying branches of submerged trees and buildings. The door swung outward so it wouldn't have moved until the pressure equalized.  
  
Duh.  
  
Not one to waste time, Methos kicked for the surface and managed to poke his head above just as his lungs felt like they would burst.  
  
Reaching shore Methos pulled himself onto the blessed dry ground and surrendered to the darkness.  
  
--  
  
Sometime later he awoke. He was still sitting on the frozen shore and the sun was riding high in the sky. Stretching, he worked blood into his frozen limbs and by some miracle managed to stand. Offering up a quick IOU to whatever god was on duty at the moment he set off in search of civilization.  
  
Much of the landscape had changed, being underwater and all, and he had some trouble getting his bearings. However, in the end his sense of direction reasserted itself and he set off in the direction he strongly believed would be the quickest route to civilization.  
  
"Mac, I don't know how you did it."  
  
Methos mused to himself. He recalled his friend's reputed years as a wanderer and scratched aimlessly at some residual scabs on his hands. Apparently it had been harder to undo that latch then he remembered.  
  
As he trudged along through the woods and brambles he reflected on his situation. How had he ended up helping that Striker fellow anyway? He remembered.something. and a fight maybe. Oh, it was no use. and pointless. It didn't matter where he had been, only where he was going. He absently rubbed the back of his neck and marveled at a small scar he felt. Running his finger along the edge he discovered it was in the shape of a circle.  
  
"What the."  
  
Then he remembered. years of fog. He remembered feeling like he couldn't control what he was doing and just when he thought he was coming back, there would be the pain in the back of his neck again.  
  
How long had it been?  
  
Gods, it must have been *years*.  
  
"Don't look back old man." He pointedly reminded himself and trudged on. But, that was easier said then done. His mind kept turning back to all the things he had done. Done to mutants. He had raided a school? Gods.  
  
Not that he was partial to children but there were some things his pride just couldn't take.  
  
They had sent him, after little children. Mutants, sure, but they were still kids.  
  
Oh, if he wasn't already dead he would kill that Striker fellow.  
  
In the back part of his mind Methos heard a small voice wonder, are those kids all right?  
  
Stupified, he stopped for a moment. What had happened to those kids? Normally, Methos wasn't the type of person to worry about much other then himself but for some reason he felt somehow responsible for the kids he had hurt. After all, they were just *kids*. Mutant or not.  
  
With a sigh Methos muttered to himself about turning into Duncan the Overgrown Boy-scout but he still made the decision to find out about the school. Methos knew enough about himself to know that if he didn't take care of this it would bother him. Running away from fights was one thing but.  
  
Shrugging his shoulders, Methos turned his steps in the direction (he hoped) of the nearest outpost of civilization and from there, New York and Xavier's school for the Gifted.  
  
---  
  
Let me know!!  
  
Review or I won't update. Nah!!  
  
Rachel ( 


	2. How Methos found Civilization

Due to the overwhelming number of reviews to the last chapter, I was forced to update ahead of schedule *nudge, nudge*, *wink, wink*. I have tried to take some of your comments about the next step in the story into consideration but, I already had some idea where I wanted to go so...  
  
As to taking more time to flesh out my stories..haha. I take as much time as I have available and finish stories as best as I can. I am not one to over-flower I will admit but I believe that some details can be better described by one's own imagination then by my providence.  
  
That said, I want to thank everyone, even criticism is appreciated. That's not to say I always like it :). But it is appreciated none the less. I am currently operating without a beta reader so let me apologize in advance.  
  
Now, On with the show.  
  
Hey! No powers! Part the second of ??  
  
-  
  
The second his foot hit the pavement Methos offered up his second IOU to whatever god was on duty. Granted, pavement was an overstatement for the crumbling path before him, but it was an improvement over the dirt track he had been following.  
  
"Two paths diverged in a yellow wood..." Methos muttered quietly.  
  
Looking at the horizon, the ancient immortal felt a stab of worry. The sun had long since quit her noon position and was quickly sinking behind the trees. Listening to the wind howl in the tops of the trees he shivered and the stab grew into a full blown concern.  
  
"Crap." Methos muttered as the reality of the situation hit him. So far he had been alright because the daylight had kept the temperature at a somewhat manageable level. But daylight would soon be gone.  
  
The temperature was dropping rapidly as the grasping hands of night stole the day's warmth away. Long experience told him that it would be colder on the road with nothing to break the wind. But experience also told him he would never find his way in strange woods at night.  
  
Standing at the edge of the road, Methos weighed his options. He was in damp army fatigues, ill-suited for cold weather. The wind would cut right through his clothes, this exposure would lead to hypothermia, and eventual death. In the trees he had some protection from the wind, but if he were to fall asleep then hypothermia and death were still applicable. The road had no protection from the freezing wind chill but it did offer some hope of salvation.  
  
Road would lead to death most likely, but that he could handle. Perhaps a car would find him or he would find a town. In the woods had did not have that hope.  
  
"And I, I took the one more traveled by. And that will make all the difference."  
  
Bracing himself, Methos made his decision and stepped onto the road.  
  
-  
  
The wind beat against him as he quit the shelter of the woods for the exposed road. Hunching down further in his woefully inadequate and damp fatigues Methos trudged warily ahead, muttering to himself and praying for a car. He tried to concentrate on what would happen when (and if ) he finally reached the school but his mind kept slipping back to the problem at hand.  
  
"It's too damn cold." He shouted emphatically. His words were snatched by the wind and blown back at him scornfully as if the wind itself were mocking him.  
  
The handsome immortal's dark hair seemed to turn to gray as the icy hand of the wind seized every bit of moisture remaining and transformed it into ice. Methos felt his mind wander as his internal temperature started to drop. His feet started to stumble more and more on the crumbling road but he continued stubbornly forward. He walked for what seemed like hours. Hours or minutes he had no way of knowing and he lost all track of time. All track.  
  
"Track, path, and bloody freaking road." He whispered shakily.  
  
Step, step, step was the only measure of time or distance that he had. He tried counting steps but as the cold crept up his arms and his legs it grew harder and harder to concentrate on counting. Soon his feet, hands, and face were all numb with cold and he felt his mind begin to spin.  
  
He wondered what it would feel like to freeze to death. He hadn't done that in a while. Not since... the Russian revolution anyway. What fun that had been. At least he thought so... Gibberish flashed through his mind more and more and he drowned it out by redoubling his efforts to concentrate on his footsteps. In one last hope he seized a line from a familiar poem and as he whispered it out loud he stepped to the rhythm.  
  
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;"  
  
Methos paused to cough but continued after a few minutes.  
  
"For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me."  
  
Methos stumbled as he tried to recall the rest, eventually he remembered the last few lines and continued. His words quivered as he shivered but he spoke loudly into the frigid night. His words hung on the air like ghostly clouds and shadows. Being not a stranger to death, Methos could feel it creeping up behind him. Stubborn to the last he offered up the last lines of the poem as an ode to his old friend,  
  
"Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep passed, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more!"  
  
Methos shouted the last line and collapsed to his knees. The water in his clothes and hair was frozen and his eyes and nose were running profusely. As his vision started to cloud Methos saw what looked like twin suns come over the hill ahead of him. Glorious warmth flooded his limbs and he collapsed the rest of the way into the snow. When the suns (though he vaguely remembered they were called "head-lights") stopped ahead of him and an angel seemed to appear from behind them he had only sense enough to mutter a few last words,  
  
"John Donne, 1572-1631"  
  
And with that, Methos passed out of consciousness and out of the cold.  
  
-  
  
Not in a month of Sunday's had Ted Bommer seen a man on this road. At least not a frozen man in camouflage. The poor fellow was covered in ice and his lips were mighty blue. Ted hadn't made it past the ninth grade but he did have sense enough to stop and help. Bringing his rusted Chevy truck to a stop a few feet from the poor guy, he got out of the car in time to see him collapse to the snow. When he reached the guy he was muttering something, but Ted hadn't learned about John Donne in ninth grade so he paid no attention.  
  
Ted's overalls and plaid shirt concealed more then his impressive girth. He also had a bit of muscle and he enlisted its use to get the army man in the truck. With a heave ho and a groan or two Mr. Bommer managed to lever the poor, frozen body of Methos into his truck. Ted walked quickly back to his seat and started the truck up again. Checking his sandy hair and blue eyes in the mirror for no good reason at all, Ted thought of the date he was going to be late for. Then he realized that being a good Samaritan might just be his ticket to getting past first base and cheered up considerably.  
  
The army man was settled in the passenger seat and Ted was speeding on down the road with the heater on high. Rusted though it was, the Chevy truck possessed an engine of steel that was capable of starting no matter how cold it was outside and pumping out heat at extreme temperatures. Soon the ice in Methos' hair and clothes had resumed its liquid form and the cold pallor of his skin had turned to a healthy glow.  
  
The first sight to greet Methos upon waking was the sallow skin of an overweight Ted Bommer, clothed in overalls and plaid and possessing sandy hair and blue eyes. Of all the roads in all the world, Methos had to be on the one that facilitated the only red-neck in the Northern Provinces. Fate often wears a funny face and Methos was glad she visited, no matter what form she took.  
  
Soon they had arrived in a town so small it wasn't even on the map. But, that didn't matter to Methos. It had a phone and that was all he needed.  
  
And thus did Methos emerge from the wild and through a trial by ice, reach civilization.  
  
==  
  
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of... Hey! No powers!  
  
Rachel muahaha.  
  
Death Be not Proud, John Donne  
  
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but they pictures be, Much pleasure- then, from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep passed, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. 


	3. How Methos Finally Got On His Way

Chapter three:

Author Note: Thank you all for you comments and praise. I will take a few lines to address some of my critics here...

Yes, I did get the line from Robert Frost's poem incorrect. Thanks for pointing that out :). But Methos is cold and tired so we must give him a break on that account. I know I launch into authorial voice in the first chapter. I tend to do that quite frequently and will probably do it again. But, since this is a past time not a career and I usually like to keep things interesting and not perfect, I doubt I will revise and smooth it out. Thanks for pointing that out anyway.

There was originally some address made to a few more complaints here, but because most of them were made a year ago, I decided to cut them. Sorry for not updating, I had a really rough year at school (my hair fell out. Literally fell out ï) and when the summer rolled around I was even to fried to read, much less write. I have now sufficiently recovered and rediscovered my slumbering synapses. So, here comes the next chapter...

On with the show.

The hotel room was silent and dark. Barely a breeze ruffled the curtains and hardly a cockroach was stirring. All was still except for the tumultuous form on the bed.

Methos tossed and turned frantically as he writhed in the throes of another nightmare.

In his dream, Methos was standing in a strange building. He knew there was something in here he didn't want to see but for the life of him he couldn't remember what. Then, suddenly the room began to melt away, dissolving into darkness. Everything seemed to fade and for a moment, Methos was comforted by blissful stillness, but not for long. Like a terrible gash, the darkness opened before him. Bloody red light streamed in through the tear in the dark. Methos hesitantly took a step towards the opening. A voice called from behind him in the darkness,

"Don't go in there!" High and shrill, the voice was like a knife rending the silence into pieces. The world seemed to shatter into an unearthly chorus of shouts and screams.

Methos knew he was dreaming, but he knew there was nothing to do, he had to go in. It was the same night after night... he shouted into the darkness,

"I have to! I can't run anymore."

"Why now?" The voice rose above the others and shot its demand at Methos.

"I don't know."

"Don't know!" all the voices seemed to take up Methos' final shout. They screamed it at him, fired their words like razor sharp arrows into his mind...

"Don't know, don't know...don't know!"

Clutching his ears to drown out the voices, and with a scream, Methos threw himself into the bloody red tear in the darkness...

Suddenly, the figure on the bed sat bolt upright. The corners of the hotel room echoed briefly with a scream, but it quickly died from Methos' lips as he returned to the real world.

"Damn nightmares." He muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair and over his sweat-drenched brow. He drew his hand back and looked at it wonderingly in the moonlight. He half expected it to be covered in blood. But, he couldn't remember why...

Methos shivered slightly and stood to close the window. Disentangling himself from the sheets he pondered over the last few weeks. The nightmares had started almost immediately after he had escaped. Every night it was the same dream. They all ended with the darkness and the blood red door. Methos shook his head and shut the window with a snap. It had been a good while since he had last worn the clothes of a psychologist but he still remembered that such things as reoccurring nightmares were never good. However, he was not overly anxious to delve into their cause.

For someone who had once been Death on a horse, he had surprisingly few nightmares over the eons and was not anxious to find out what event could be causing these. Still, one couldn't help but be a little curious...

Putting his misgivings aside, Methos settled back into the bed. It was still the wee-hours of the morning anyway, and the nightmare never happened twice, so he closed his eyes to get a few more hours of beauty sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a very big day.

Getting this far had not been easy. Methos now resided in a cheap hotel within spitting distance of Xavier's school for the gifted. Well, not exactly in spitting distance, unless you could spit really really far...but he could walk there in less than a day. But, it had taken a lot to get there. Once allowed access to a phone, Methos had gotten down to business. A new identity, money, transportation, and most importantly, a sword all had to be acquired.

Money had proven to be the easiest to get. Swedish bank accounts were a must for any ancient immortal and Methos was no exception. A few key positions in the Swedish banking system were traditionally held by immortals and once the connections had been made, there were no questions asked. A new identity and transportation followed quick on the heels of money. The sword had been one of the hardest. His last one was lost in who-knows-where land and he needed a new one quick. Trouble was, they don't make swords like they used to. The solution to his problem was simple enough once he though of it. The Internet is a beautiful thing. Within two weeks of his order, a beautiful broad sword arrived at Methos' hotel. Methos chuckled to himself when he opened the package. For a bargain he had gotten a priceless broadsword just slightly longer then his old one. Methos settled the comforting weight into the special pocket in this coat and offered up a thanks to the god of Ebay.

With ID, credit card, and sword in hand (or in coat) Methos set off on the first leg of his journey to New York and Xavier's school for the gifted.

—

Now two weeks later, he was sleeping again in his hotel room near Westchester, New York. The nightmare was forgotten and he lay wrapped in sleep. Now everything was perfectly still, the curtains didn't rustle and there were relatively few cockroaches in this hotel anyway.

Soon the sun crept over the top of the horizon and spilled into the room. The shrill ringing of the phone tried to call a greeting to the sun, but the phone was rudely interrupted by Methos' rough hand removing the receiver from the cradle and jamming it to his ear.

"Good Morning Sir!"

"Hmmm..."

"Your wake up call, its 6:00, rise and shine."

Methos sneered at the receiver as if the woman on the other end could really see and slammed the phone back down. Laying for a few more minutes he finally surrendered to necessity and sat up.

Methos turned and let his legs dangle over the side of the bed. Looking at the shower longingly he forced his attention to the task at hand. No matter how grimy and sweaty he felt, taking a shower would ruin the effect he was going to go for.

With a sigh, Methos took a brown bag out from under the bed and removed a pair of long johns, some jeans, and an army coat. Methos dug further into the bag and pulled out a pair of scissors. Right away he got to work cutting holes in the jeans. While he feathering the edges of the holes to make them appear worn, not artificially created, he went over the days plan in his head.

"Arrive at the school at approximately 10:00 am on foot."

Methos took a few more snips with his scissors and winced. Planning exact movements like this felt like he was back planning raids for Chronos or Striker. Two men and two time periods he would rather not remember. Consoling himself with the fact that the goal of this planning was vastly different, he went back to work as best he could.

Taking the sharp edge of the scissors he scraped away at the material around the knees, butt, and heels. All the places that received the most wear.

"Name: Adam Gramm, check. Uh.. Birth date? December seventh. Even better."

Methos continued to muse to himself while he worked. Arriving on foot was crucial for what came next. His actions after arriving all depended on their reaction to him. There was a possibility that someone might recognize him. If that happened then he worked the "mutant under control" angle. If no one recognized him then he was a "mutant in need." What happened after he got to the school was a complete mystery. For some reason, all the farther ahead Methos could think was just getting to the school and being allowed in. Once he saw the children were still all right, there was no reason to stay... Was there? Something inside him almost felt that he owed them one. After all, he had been the mastermind behind the raid on the school, he remembered that much at least.

Methos held the jeans up and inspected his additions. The holes looked natural and the wear was perfect. He gave himself a mental pat on the back and moved on to the long johns.

Unless something drastic had changed in the last few years that he had been... otherwise occupied... long johns were a necessity for any respectable bum or mutant on the run. But he couldn't remember a bum with long johns quite as bright and clean as these. That would have to be remedied. Methos grabbed the paper bag and rummaged in it's remaining contents. Producing a bag of old fashioned dirt from inside he chuckled to himself. For some reason a bag of dirt suddenly struck him as funny.

He went to the bathroom and pushed the thought of a shower out of his mind with not a little regret. Running the water in the sink he added a little to the bag. Mixing it together he mused more about his schedule. He was going to arrive at the mansion at 10, but what then? What in the world could he possibly say that would convince them to take him in? Especially if someone remembered him... his recollection of the Lost-Days, as he called them, were shadowy at best. But he dimly remembered is raid on the school and his encounter with some of the children... had he worn a mask? Would they remember his face?

There was no possible way to tell until he arrived. Working the mud into the sleeves of the long johns he muttered aloud to himself, as much to break the oppressive silence of the room as anything else.

"This is never going to work..."

Laying down the soiled long johns he turned to the coat. It was the remnants of the one he had worn during his escape from Alkali lake, it needed no assistance. Hanging his head, Methos allowed himself a brief moment of despair. The questions that constantly buzzed in the back of his mind marched to the forefront. How am I ever going to make this work? What am I even going to say when I get there?

What about the nightmares?

He had spent so much time during the last few weeks just surviving that he hadn't had time to even wonder about the event that had delivered him into the hands of Stryker. He knew his dreams were a clue but there wasn't even a shadow of conscious memory of what ever had happened. Methos didn't even know how long he had been under the control of that horrid man.

What about the nightmares?

Shoving away that painful question, Methos stood and began to dress in his newly made bum costume. There was no point in thinking about it. It would only distract him from the time at hand and as any good general knows, nothing is worse than being distracted when you face your opponent. Granted, Xavier and his school for the gifted wasn't exactly an opponent, but the idea was the same. He couldn't afford to screw up.

He didn't know why but for some reason he had to go to that school. He had to meet Xavier and the others. He didn't know why, he had a suspicion that he couldn't know just yet. Answers were what he sought now, there were too many questions without answers and he had a strong feeling that the answers lay there, at that school.

"Don't know.... Don't know... don't know."

The taunting voice from his dreams echoed eerily in his conscious mind. For some reason the voice sounded oddly familiar but it slipped from Methos before he could remember whose voice it was.

Turning in front of the mirror, Methos inspected his new duds.

"Gorgeous as ever..." Methos smiled to himself.

Pushing away his distraction and doubts, he headed towards the door. A brief flash of red haunted his memory but the only thing on the other side of the door was an ordinary hallway. And beyond that an ordinary road and two hours walk down that... a not so ordinary school...

And it was towards that that Methos, a man with roots so far in history that his origin was lost even to himself, now turned, unsteady and unsure.

In a quiet room in the upper floors of the mansion, in a room richly paneled in wood, a bald man sat, facing the window. He was seated, because he was always seated, it was rather a permanent condition brought about by events I shall not discuss here. To the outside observer it would appear that the old gentleman was merely sitting and staring, as old people tend to do. But, in the case of Professor Xavier, that could not be farther from the truth. In fact he was doing quite a lot. He was monitoring the intentions of three students down the hall who were emitting powerfully violent thoughts and he was doing his best to calm them. He was working hard to ignore the decidedly impure thoughts of a certain Ice-Man (more boy at the moment) as he sat watching TV with a girl he had no hope of even touching, literally. Currently though, most of his thoughts were turned towards a presence that he felt coming nearer. It had the feeling of immense... time. It was a presence that he had not sensed in years... yet he seemed to remember feeling a hint of it during his captivity by Stryker. Yet, then it had been subdued, captive.

Now it was back, he was back. A man he had not seen in a long time. He had called himself Alex then but Xavier knew now as he knew then... his true name...

Methos.

And he was almost at the school.

I promise to update soon !!

rachel


	4. How Methos finally makes it to the door

Methos stumbled unsteadily down the driveway. His resolve and courage (fairly meager to begin with) had all but melted away at approximately the same time he walked through the immense wrought iron gates with the demure plaque proclaiming that just up this drive was Xavier's School.

Methos struggled with himself, more so because he was out of practice with going against his nature then because of the severity of his inner turmoil. Every fiber of 5000 years of experience and survival told him to turn his butt around and go lay on the beach in the Bahamas for a century or two. Yet for some reason his feet kept moving forward. The grit between his shoes and the driveway crackled accusingly and he shook his head. This was stupid. Why was he going to the school? Why did he feel so driven to confront Xavier and the X-men. Something inside of him was whispering that this strange compulsion and the events in his nightmare were linked but try as he might he couldn't fathom the link.

If only he knew what his nightmare portended… was it some horror spat up by his subconscious mind after however long he had been captive or was it the twisted representation of some real event that had driven him to Stryker's side. He only hoped that the matter would either clear itself up soon or just go away all together, fretting was such a bother, even for someone who didn't need to worry about wrinkles.

He walked around the corner of the driveway and to his surprise found more driveway.

"Oh well, more time to think." He muttered to himself sadly. All he really wanted was to get drunk, stark raving drunk. He promised himself to rectify the mistake of his sobriety at the next possible opportunity, adjusted his pack and continued walking.

What in the world was he going to tell them was his power? Well, there was the obvious but he wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to tell them about the whole, no dying thing, too many years of ingrained suspicion railed against it. Deep down inside however, he knew… that would have to be it.

"I just won't tell them until they ask." He promised himself.

Methos was distracted from his bothersome inner conflict by a slight sound off to the left side of the driveway. Another man may have ignored or dismissed such a slight disturbance of the general foliage and underbrush but Methos was aware of it immediately. Without shifting his gait or betraying the fact that he had heard it, Methos began using his senses to scan the area around him. Since tasting, touching and smelling were pratically out of the question, he concentrated on sight and hearing. No other out of place sounds made themselves known but Methos became aware of subtle movement in the underbrush before him. A branch swayed almost imperceptibly against the wind and Methos caught a flash of black and green fabric.

Cursing silently under his breath, Methos relized the truth of the situation. Of course the military wouldn't leave such an obvious threat as a school for mutants unwatched. If he hadn't been so caught up in the mysterious pull towards the school he would have realized that far sooner. Methos continued to walk along the driveway briskly.His hurry due more to the cold wind that was beginning to blow through the trees then his camoflaged shadow.

As he trudged along though the trees one guard dropped away only to be replaced by another almost as soon as the last disappeared. They stayed to themselves and mostly clung to the underbrush and shadows. Methos decided that so long as they weren't threatening him, he simply wasn't the type to pick a fight against unknown odds (a.k.a. Not the stupid type,) and so he continued along, keeping one ear out for the guards and devoting a significant amount of his concentration to inner turmoil.

Methos mused to himself about whether the occupants of the school knew of their stealthy companions in the grounds around the school but decided quickly that with Charles Xavier as their leader, there was no way they could not know. As he walked he whistled to himself, attempting to appear as the innocent bystander. For a few minutes he couldn't place the tune until he realized that it was that silly Queen song...

"I am immortal... i have inside me blood of kings..."

Methos smiled to himself and shook his head... what the hell was he doing here?

Meanwhile in the beautifully paneled common room of the not so common school, The Professor and Scott were sitting with several children watching a strange television program. Logan stood in the entryway, leaning in his usual moody way but with an uncharacteristic smile on his features as he listened to the conversation going on between the children and the two adults.

"Now which one is the one with the spiky black hair again?" Scott moaned in his usual wimpy way.

"Goku." One of the kids said matter-of-factly

"I thought the other little one was Goku" Charles said questioningly

"No, no that's Gohan."

"I don't understand how you can tell the difference..." Charles whispered resignedly.

"And what's with the crazy fighting style, doesn't anybody notice that they are flying around throwing energy balls at each other in strangely empty fields that are somehow located next to civilized areas?" Scott asked.

The children just rolled their eyes and turned their attention back to the television. Sometimes there is just no hope for grown-ups.

Charles Xavier, mutant psychic extrodinare was smiling at the expasperated thoughts emanating from the group of children in front of him when he felt a spike of emotion from one of the guards outside. Sending his power out to search for intruders in the immediate vicinity he suddenly had a sense of immense age. Starting, Charles opened his eyes and silently mouthed the name of the approaching presense to himself...

"Methos..."

Unhurredly, Professor Xavier turned to Scott and glanced at Logan who had sensed the Professors' mood change and was standing up straight, ready to face whatever was coming.

"Logan, Scott, there is someone coming... would you please come with me to go show him in?" Charles asked politely.

As he turned his wheel chair to head towards the door he heard Logan fall into step behind him,

"What kind of guest are we looking at here, show him to a room or show him the morgue?" Logan asked, relatively politely...

"I do not know yet.." Professor Xavier said somberly.

Outside the heavy wood door, Charles could sense Methos coming closer, it was difficult for him to read more than general turmoil emanating from the presense approaching the school. Charles wondered what this visit boded.. Why would Methos come here? Who was he really and what connection did he have to the controled and subdued presense he had sensed while with Stryker. Charles worked to push down his impatience. The answer to all his questions was about to ring the door bell.


	5. How Methos Makes it Through the Door

The much anticipated and much delayed chapter five…

Author's Note: To those of you who were somehow confused by my incorporation of the random guard in the bushes, I just wanted to note that I was trying to cover all my angles from the movie. I hardly think that the government would just forget about the school and leave it alone. Especially after it was invaded, and then students broke into the White House and froze time to talk to the President. If I were the military, I would want to keep an eye on that… yeah.

For Gabriel, my intrepid reviewed and her heart felt plea… I will update.

:cough:

How Methos Finally Makes it Through the Door.

On with the….show.

Pushing aside his apprehension and quelling his screaming instincts, Methos rang the doorbell. (Finally.) Almost immediately the large wooden door swung inwards revealing the faces of two of the schools inhabitants. Logan and Charles Xavier stared out from the open door at the haggard and dirty face of a certain immortal whom we all know and love. Meanwhile Methos did the only thing he could do, he stared back.

His screaming instincts ceased their screaming and all 5000 years of combined survival instinct slunk off into a disused corner of his mind to sulk and occasionally interject appropriately placed "We told you so."

Methos desperately thought of what to say to Charles. This was a rather important detail that would determine the success of this crazy venture. So why hadn't Methos thought of it? Somewhere between nearly drowning, insane nightmares, and a frantic rush to get to the school he had missed a few measly details. Such as why in the world he was going to the school at all. Hey, a guy can't always think of everything.

Methos' mind raced to come up with something. The stares of the two in the doorway were beginning to change slowly to glares as he stood mute in the doorway. His overwhelming inclination was to lie, lie like he had never lied before. Lie, lie, lie and then run away quickly. Or run while lying. Or run away and call them later and lie.

_I could always try the trusty, please I need help because I am having insane nightmares and I feel an irresistible pull to come to this school for mutant children and speak to Charles Xavier_. _Oh,_ Methos thought bitterly, _That one was sure to go over well. He might as well say that he was terribly sorry about invading the school and kidnapping children and he just wanted to come and apologize over some tea. _

Settling for less than his best, Methos finally spoke.

"I need your help."

Granted, it wasn't exactly the most witty or convincing of all arguments, but it at least got them to stop looking at him like he was about to stand on his head while fricking lazerbeams shot out of his eyes. More or less.

Scott, who was crouching behind the door in case the visitor got out of hand, started slightly at the sound of Methos voice. Logan, who was lurking intimidatingly at Xavier's side gave no start at all but he did step forward towards Methos and grab the immortals grubby jacket in one burly fist,

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?" Logan demanded gruffly.

"My name is Adam Gramm and if you want the truth… I have no clue what I am doing here. Except that I know I need help and that this is the only place I can hope to find it."

The truth, what a clever idea. Why it hadn't occurred to him to tell the truth before Methos didn't know but all his instincts were in agreement that this course of action was indeed best.

The expression in Logan's eyes soften ever so slightly and he sniffed loudly in Metho's direction.

"You stink." Logan commented derisively.

"Yeah, the 'help' I spoke of needing would definitely included toilet facilities."

Logan released his hold on Methos' jacket and stepped back slowly to stand by Xavier. Methos sighed. He did so hate conflict, it was easier to stay alive when one kept out of it.

So why the hell am I here? Methos mused.

Lord, I wish I knew the answer to the question.

"_You do."_

Methos looked around quickly to determine the source of the voice and his eyes settled on the seated psychic before him.

Making me hear voices. Very clever, ha ha. How incredibly original…

Methos brought his eyes level with the Professor's and without warning was swept into a flashback of a time many years ago.

A cacophony of sound assaulted the air. It beat it with unrivaled vengeance and made the very air itself vibrate with violence and tension. Two groups, both alike in dignity, in Methos memory where we lay our scene. Soon ancient grudge would break to new mutiny and civil hands were about to become unclean. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. That amount of animosity could not exist in one place at once without someone meeting a bad end.

The crowd… wait… the _mob_ shook as the guest of honor at this hate parade screamed out his anti-mutant rhetoric. The man was rather large around the midriff and Methos couldn't help but notice that his face was becoming an uncomfortable looking shade of red. Following that line of thought, Methos mused absently about what the mob might do if the man keeled over right there. It would be an understatement to say that there were hundreds of people crowded in the small town-square. Perhaps a thousand people were packed shoulder to shoulder to listen to the speaker.

Methos shrugged and took a sip of his pint. He was sitting in the window seat of a bar that bordered the square and even though the door was closed he could still feel the vibration of sound every time the mob roared in response to something that was said.

"I reckon that today would not be a good day to be a mutant." The barkeeper mused from his perch behind the solid pine bar.

Methos turned to look at the man and nodded his head. There was no point in asking who he was talking too, Methos was the only person in the bar. All the other patrons had long ago been drawn out into the square to listen.

"I don't suppose that there every really is a good day to be different." Methos sighed with a vague hint of sadness.

"No, there never is." The barkeeper agreed.

Methos sipped his pint for a few more minutes while the tension outside rose to a fever pitch. The speaker's voice was now drowned out by the shouting crowd. Methos had been around long enough to know what was going to happen next. People never changed. Give them something to be righteously indignant about and they will band together to kill something. Or at least seriously hurt something or someone. It was a pattern that he knew all to well. In fact, he had used it to his advantage plenty of times. He recognized the same strategy in the man who was screaming at the crowd. He would bet even money that the ringleader had some kind of personal grudge against mutants and he was using the mob mentality to his advantage. He knew that he could get the people worked up enough then they would do his dirty work for him.

Sighing, Methos prudently moved away from the window and went to sit at the back of the bar. For some reason, mobs and broken windows were like wine and cheese, they just seemed to go together. The barkeeper walked over to the door and had his hand of the lock when Methos spoke.

"That won't help."

The barkeeper glanced back at Methos and the ancient immortal noticed a streak of fear in the man's eyes.

Oh. A mutant eh?

"Stand back here. If they want to come in then they will. If you lock the door then they will just break it down, if you leave it unlocked you might save yourself at least some damage."

The barkeeper moved back towards Methos and stood in the shadow behind the bar. He glanced out the window at the mob that was just beginning to move and then looked at the Speaker. Methos was surprised to see the fear change to hatred.

"Why are there people in this world that cannot accept the fact that some people are born different. I never asked for it. I would have been like them if I had a choice. Why do I deserve to be punished just because they cannot accept change?"

Methos downed the rest of his beer and looked at the bartender with the eyes of a man who had seen fifty centuries pass.

"No matter how enlightened they claim to be, the human race has never been more than a mob waiting to form. No matter what race or creed they have simply never been able to deal with change. They seek it out and eliminate it at any cost. I suppose it's because they hate being reminded of their own frailty."

The barkeeper nodded sadly and stared back out the window.

Methos felt surprised at his sudden chattiness and decided that the pint was to blame. He joined the bartender in staring out the window. While they had had their heart to heart the mob had begun its work. They were currently decimating the store across the way. Whether that store had anything to do with mutants or not was beside the point. Their violence needed an outlet and in the absence of a clear foe, they were resorting to destruction of property. As the bartender slunk further into the shadows a figure barged its way in through the door and made a beeline for the shadowy rear area of the bar.

Methos watched the young man make his way to the back and thought that it would probably be safer for these persecuted men to just join in with the mob but he supposed the idea of sacrificing their own morals for personal safety was too high a cost. Oh well, to each their own.

"Charles!" the bartender exclaimed softly as he caught sight of the strangers face.

"Darius…" Charles sighed with a ghost of a smile.

"Methos" Methos interjected as a way of introduction. Holding out his hand he shook with each of them in turn. He had unthinkingly used his real name but didn't really puzzle about it for long. These men probably wouldn't last the day. The mob was moving closer. Perhaps he felt a bit of a connection with their plight. Difference was a subject he knew far too much about already.

"Darius we have to get out of here, is there an exit out back?" Charles demanded breathlessly. Methos could almost feel the desperation emanating from both of the men. They were silent for a moment and Charles looked at Methos curiously as if he was hearing something that Methos did not.

Not one to be puzzled, Methos shrugged and turned to Darius,

"So, any exits or are you fellows trapped? Like two rats in a cage." Methos glanced out the window, the mob was closing in fast.

They should have pitchforks and torches. A mob just isn't a mob unless they have pitchforks and torches. Methos supposed that the Molotov cocktails and clubs that they frontrunners of the group possessed might do just as well. It just didn't have the same amount of style and finesse.

"You are trapped too you know." The bartender stated flatly.

Methos chuckled softly to himself. People never liked to be reminded when they suffered alone. A little louder, Methos replied,

"Yes, but my chances of survival are a lot higher. And yours are getting lower as the time passes."

With one final glare from Darius, which Methos did not take personally, Darius and Charles skittered towards the back followed by Methos at a more sedate pace. Before long Darius the bartender had removed a few key crates and barrels to reveal a much disused access door to the alley behind the bar.

Producing a key from his ring, the bartender opened the lock with a rusty snap. Complaining loudly for being disturbed, the door opened outwards to reveal a thin shaft of daylight filtering in from between the buildings. Charles closed his eyes momentarily and announced with assurance that there was no one in the alleyway outside. Creeping out as softly as they could the pair made their way towards the end of the alleyway that would take them farthest away from the approaching mob. Distantly Methos heard screams or terror from the square,

"Sounds like they found something to kill." Methos mused, not without a hint of sadness.

Darius and Charles hesitated slightly at the sound and swayed as if it had been them who had been hurt. Methos wondered if perhaps they were both psychic. Possibly. From his vantage point at the open door he could see both ends of the alley. The two seconds hesitation had cost the mutant pair. An offshoot from the mob had made its way around building and had spotted the three people trying to escape from the alley. Well, two people trying to escape, one standing calmly by the outside door.

Methos knew enough to realize that running would never have been a good idea. If running would have helped him escape the thousand man mob headed his way, he would have been the first to tuck tail and run, he felt no shame in admitting that to himself. He was a survivor through and through. But in some cases the only way to survive was to just sit back and let them kill you.

At first sight of the approaching mob, the mutants tried to sprint away as fast as they could but it was no good, others had streamed around so that they closed off both sides. Methos wished he had at least had another pint while he was at it, that would have at least made the next part bearable. The men along the front lines brandished their clubs menacingly. Somewhere in the back, a few men held up some torches they had made from the smoldering remains of the shop across the square. Methos noticed the torches with a small amount of relief, at least he was going to fall to a decent mob.

"Get them!" Someone screamed, it didn't really matter who. Once a mob was formed they were of one mind, one purpose, death and destruction.

With that shout as a cue the two innocent mutants and the one semi-innocent immortal were bombarded by verbal and physical abuse. Distantly Methos heard Darius and Charles shouting as they tried to fight their attackers.

Suddenly a shock of movement filled the air, an explosion without sound rocked the walls on either side of them. It seemed to rain bodies as the attackers were thrown back violently. In the middle of the suddenly clear area surrounding the trio, Methos noticed Darius standing with his head in his hands. He looked drawn like he had just expended too much energy.

Well, that was handy.

Seeing a clear path and sensing that mob was currently in a state of confusion, Methos sprinted for the opening. Apparently, it had never occurred to them that anyone would fight back so the men all stared dumbly as Methos led Charles and Darius away from the mob.

As he ran Methos felt his cracked ribs and broken nose knit together and heal and his flight became easier. Glancing back he saw the young Charles keeping pace easily but Darius was lagging behind, his face pale and drawn.

"He did too much!" Charles shouted.

Behind them, Methos could see the group beginning to reform. Although smaller than before the mob was no less intent on capturing their prey. A prey that would be all too easy to catch with Darius playing the role of weakest link.

Swearing to himself, how did he ever manage to get himself into this kind of stuff, Methos slowed and fell back to run alongside Darius.

"I should just leave you behind." Methos stately matter-of-factly. Darius didn't have enough air to respond.

Sighing and cursing once more for good measure Methos ran up to Charles and spoke quickly to the fleeing mutant.

"You and your friend need to run and hide as best as you can. Get him out of sight quickly."

"How?"

"Leave that up to me."

Dropping to a walk Methos turned to look at the approaching mob.

Oh hell, he really needed to stop drinking. These men were nothing to him, he should have just abandoned them… but noooo.. Thanks MacCloud. He thought sarcastically. He had been much better at surviving before meeting that overgrown boy scout. Now look what he was about to do.

"_Thanks"_ Methos heard Charles voice echo in his mind.

"You're welcome" he muttered to himself.

As he felt the mob approaching he turned and gave them his best scared-out-of-my-wits look before pretending to trip. They were on him in an instant. He felt the blows distantly and was vaguely surprised when he saw a noose and felt himself being dragged towards the nearest overhead stoplight post. A proper mob indeed.

Offering up a silent thanks to whoever was listening Methos pretended to scream and flail as they passed the noose above his head and swung the rope over post. A short drop and a sudden stop was much better than a quick chop any day he mused to himself as they pulled the rope taunt so he was swinging slightly above the ground.

He last thoughts were a hope that this had not been in vain. He really hoped he hadn't sacrificed himself for someone too stupid to get out while they could. Bloody idiots.

With that he surrendered and went still.

The mob having satisfied its need for blood parted. Some went in search of the ones that got away, others just went home. Some one thoughtfully let Methos' body off the rope and then went about their merry way, comfortable in the knowledge that their mob of hatred and violence had made the world a better place.

By the time Charles and Darius dared to come out of hiding, Methos was gone. Only an empty noose and a few blood spots remained to show where he had lain.

Methos was torn from his flashback when Scott rudely punched him. While he had been lost in the past, Scott has risen from his place behind the door and had apparently been demanding to know who Methos really was for the last few minutes.

"I was talking to you!" Scott yelled.

Logan stepped in and easily held back the screaming Cyclops.

"Great, some guy comes and asks for help and you deck him." Logan growled angrily, "The just the way to broadcast peace and harmony in the mutant community."

"He was there!" Scott whined, "He was there at Alkali lake! He is one of Stryker's men"

"I was one of Stryker's men you mean," Methos stated flatly, rubbing the place on the back of his neck where the strange circle scar had been. Then he added "And you would sound more intelligent if you varied your sentence structure a little more. 'He was… He is… He was…' sounds a little childish."

Charles held up a hand to stop Cyclops from attempting to punch Methos again and turned questioningly at the man still standing in the doorway to the school.

"Why are you here… after all this time." Charles asked puzzledly. His confusion at the disappearance of the long ago benefactor that had saved him and his companion came rushing back as Xavier stared at the slightly haggard figure standing in the doorway. So many years had passed and yet his appearance was just the same…

As Charles attempted to answer these questions Methos spoke again….

"The guy with the sunglasses is right, I was with Stryker but not by choice. I don't know what happened to me or how long I was like that. I want my life back but the only way to do that is to find out what happened. I have to know and you are the only one who could help me."

Methos mentally patted himself on the back for being so convincingly eloquent. He was about to proclaim it a good fabrication when he realized that for the most part that was the truth… something that had happened to him was spurring him to come seek out these mutants. His dream… it must somehow be connected with his urge to go to the school. But what had happened?

It must have been important or he never would have headed into danger. Danger just wasn't Methos style.

Meanwhile, as Methos was finally led into the school by Charles and a whiny looking Cyclops, the bushes a ways down the driveway shifted. The man, heavily decked out in camouflage lowered his binoculars and slunk further into the undergrowth.

This was the man he had been seeking. Adam… Methos, whatever he called himself… he knew that face anywhere.

No man from that unit must be left alive. If he ever remembered…

He wouldn't remember, he would never be able to tell others about the experiment. This man would make sure of it. Petting his rifle lovingly and fingering the machete strapped to his belt, the man waited for the sun to set.

End chapter five… hopefully chapter 6 will be up in a couple of weeks. Just hope the muse doesn't take flight again.

rachel


	6. How I Promise to Finish the Dang Thing

Okay, okay… here we go. I could make excuses for the hiatus… but lets just chalk it up to youth and instability. My muse… whose life was recently threatened by a reviewer… is flighty to say the least. When I started this story a century ago… was it only two years?… I had no idea where I was going with it. I just wrote the first chapter and posted it to see if I got any response. Well… I did… more than on any of my other stories combined…

Well, for that I was unprepared so I wrote another chapter… then abandoned it… wrote another chapter… then abandoned it… and so the cycle continues.

Well… I recently turned 20… horrah. And I have decided that all the things I abandoned in my youth need finishing. My new oath… to which I will hold because I am an adult now : smile sarcastically: is that I will finish the story by the time the next x-men comes out. I will be a task master… actually treating writing this story like a job. Hopefully I will be able to find my outline (which I think I threw away) and if I don't well.. I will just write another one.

On a more technical note… There was some confusion concerning the character I wrote into the last chapter… Darius. Well, I always have a character named Darius lurking around. He is one of my best fictional friends and I always put him in… in my haste to finish the chapter… I neglected to consider that there was another character named Darius in the Highlander series. They are not the same person… Darius in my story is just a mutant friend of Charles who may or may not pop back up. But if he does… be sure to say hi, he did save Fan Fiction after all and it is he who is pushing me to finish this tale. (See "The Professor")

So anyways… that ought to provide some hope…

Besides I want to write a novel and this ought to be good practice..yesss….

Rachel


	7. How Methos Finds Himself Puzzled

Not too late in coming i hope... i had intended to get this up sooner but was struck down unexpectedly by a severe case of bronchitus. As i felt that i was not long for this world, i hardly had the strength to write. I don't think this is one of my better chapters... but i am trying to get back in the Methos of things.

Do enjoy this bit o' fun... :)

* * *

They were all starring at him like he was some kind of freak. Yeah, like they had any room to talk. Being able to fry people with rays from your eyeballs was just about as unusual as an ex-soldier visiting the people he had helped kidnap and detain. Well, maybe not as unusual an ex-soldier who could remember the bronze age… but they still could have held off with the starring.

Methos shifted in his chair and made a detailed study of his fingernails. Untold grime was lurking beneath those bits of tissue and he remembered just how desperately he wanted a shower. If you weren't going to lie to them, you could have at least skipped the disguise… he thought absently. His better nature perked up with an answer as it always did… There is no way that they would have believed a soldier who had escaped from a flooded base and somehow made it from the remote country of Canada to Upstate New York would look like a Calvin Klein model in shiny new cloths.

I could be a Calvin Klein model… Methos thought to himself, running a hand through his neglected hair and smiling to himself.

"What are you smiling about?" Wolverine asked gruffly. The imposing mutant was leaning against the Professors desk, his well-muscled arms crossed in front of his chest, glaring down at Methos.

"Nothing…nothing…" Methos answered quickly, trying to appear flustered. "Look, are we going to get on with this, interrogate me or kick me out whatever. But at least hurry up so I can bathe!"

They continued to stare.

"Look at this…" Methos intoned, pointing pointedly at his hair, "Do you think I enjoy the thought that I could fry chicken with the contents of my hair?"

Logan made a face, Scott continued to stare… at least Methos thought he was starring, it was hard to tell with the sunglasses.

With a quiet scrape and the sound of wheels, Xavier entered the room from the door behind where Methos was seated. Turning to regard the Professor, Methos hoped that his presence would be the catalyst that would get this show on the road, he was tired of waiting.

With a glance from the Professor, Logan and Scott moved around the desk and exited through the door, shutting it behind them. Though, Methos could tell from the shadows around the door jam that they hovered just outside.

"Methos…" Charles began,

"It's Alex now." Methos interjected, he had paid a lot of money for that name.

"Whoever you are… Why have you really come?"

It was easy to tell from Charles expression that more unasked questions lurked behind his calm façade. Human's had so little time to acquire memories that Methos was sure Xavier recalled their fateful encounter all those years ago.

Settling back in his chair, Methos pushed aside the part of his mind that was trying to rally his vocal cords to lie like they had never lied before. Instead he drew a breath and prepared to do the one thing that was completely alien to him, give a straight answer.

"I don't know. Honestly, I do not. What I do know is that something, some thing in my past has pushed me to come here. Trust me," He paused to chuckle, "Were I acting on my better judgment I would be on a beach with a Mai Tai and a pretty face beside me. Instead I am here," He gestured around him to make the point clear, "not that you don't have a pretty face, but I am painfully lacking a Mai Tai."

Xavier, to Methos' relief, chuckled. "It that all there is?" The psychic mutant inquired softly…

"Well, there are these dreams but I need some time to sort those out. Look," Methos sat forward, resting his arms on his knees and hanging his head down wearily, "I don't remember how I came to be in Stryker's service, nor do I remember a lot of what I did for him, but for what it's worth… I'm sorry." The last words caught on Methos' tongue, unfamiliar with forming apologies.

Xavier smiled kindly and maneuvered next to Methos. "If I had sensed any bad intentions in you, I would never have let you in. It wouldn't be good for this place's reputation if turned away someone in need. A mental cue from Xavier called Logan and Scott back into the room. Looking pointedly at Scott, Xavier continued, "You can't be responsible for what you did when Stryker was pulling your strings."

Without looking back at Methos, Xavier made his way out of the room, calling as he left, "Scott, would you please show our guest around the school and bring him to dinner. We can find a room for him after we have all had something to eat."

What about my shower? Methos thought plaintively. He hadn't gone this long without a bath since running water had first been engineered.

……………..

* * *

Methos looked wearily around the wood panel hallway. Ostentatious was an understatement. He would have bet his broadsword that was mahogany. Distantly he was aware that his mind seized on such insignificant details to keep out the fact that he was getting a tour of a mansion that he had invaded not a month before. Keeping silent the fact that he knew the layout of this mansion like the back of his hand from studying blueprints, Methos allowed his mind to run rampant with trivialities.

The expensive potted plants, the beautiful oil paintings, the smiling but puzzled students he passed in the hallway. Ah, the world was rich with sweet distraction. Methos listened to Scott talk about each room and common area they passed, nodding at all the right places and asking a few silly questions.

Really his attention focused on the reaction he had received from the mutants in the school. Certainly he had expected rejection at the very worst, a long and tiring interrogation at the least. Instead they had accepted him without much effort at all. It was suspicious. More that 75 of Methos' drive for self-preservation was in agreement that death was imminent and he ought to get out now. The other 25 was doing its best to pay attention to Scott and toy with idea of actually staying there for some time to come. ¾ torn, Methos decided to wait it out.

After a litany of rooms and explanations, the pair finally passed something that peaked Metho's interest… a bathroom. Tapping Scott on the shoulder, Methos pointed at the bathroom with a hopeful look on his face.

Scott sniffed pointedly in Methos direction and then smiled knowingly, "I will wait outside, don't take forever, dinner will be soon."

Methos scampered as quickly as dignity allowed into the holy temple of porcelain and cleaning products. Running over to the sink, Methos held up the small golden nugget of soap before his face and very nearly kissed it. Maybe he had done just a little too good of a job on his disguise. Methos quickly washed his hands, face and plunged his head in the sinking, scrubbing fiercely. It wasn't as satisfying as a full shower, but this would do for now. Shaking off the water as best as he could, Methos rejoined Scott in the hallway.

Straightening from where he was leaning on the wall, Scott gave Methos a friendly pat on the back. "Feel better?"

Methos sighed contently in reply.

Laughing softly, Scott steered them towards the Cafeteria. Before they entered, Scott grabbed his arm and Methos turned to look into Scott's shaded eyes.

"I'm sorry about punching you before… I just…" Methos saw the sadness lurking behind Cyclops calm countenance and patted the man's shoulder in as friendly a manner as he could muster on such short notice.

"You call that a punch? It was more like swat.. a love tap even…"

Scott glared for a moment before taking the joke for what it was and chuckling, "I suppose you could have done better."

"Oh, Infinitely." Methos replied as they both walked into the stately Cafeteria. Here the wood paneling had been toned down a bit, but not by much. The tables were demure stained pine with matching chairs. Instead of long chow lines and cheesy plastic trays, the students served themselves from dishes already on the table in nondescript but no doubt expensive ceramic dishes.

The students were already seated and chatting when the pair walked through the large paneled door into the mess hall. Scott threaded his way around the tables until they reached the table where the Professor, Logan, and Storm were seated.

They all chimed in greetings as Scott seated himself next to the Professor and Methos took the next empty seat next to the ethereally beautiful Storm. Any lesser man would be drooling upon first contact with such a woman, as it was, Methos merely swallowed with greater frequency.

As Methos served himself from the array of dishes before him, he let his mind wander and the drone of students became an indistinct murmur…

Without warning, something like an electric shock went through him, momentarily taking away control of his muscles. With the sudden attack his hand opened and he dropped a ladle full of gravy all over the table. His head decided that it too wanted to meet the table and plummeted forward to connect heavily with the solid pine tabletop. The others at the table scrambled to support his other failing muscles but Methos hardly knew it, he was in another place and time entirely….

* * *

The open red gash of a door loomed before him. He could hear the murmur of voices and distant sound of screams. Inside he warred with himself. He dare not endanger his cover, if it was blown he could be killed, shot and burned to eliminate the evidence…. He couldn't afford that, not after all this time. But even 5,000 years of death, around him or by his hands, was not enough to prepare him to walk away from what lie within… he had to face the demons within… he must… save….

* * *

Opening his eyes with a gasp, Methos wondered if he had died again. It certainly felt like he had. Offering a grim smile for the concerned face hovering above him, he sat up slowly, feeling his muscle creak. 75 of his drive for self-preservation huddled in on itself to try and decide if that was a false alarm of if more I-told-you-so's were in order.

"Sorry about that…" he muttered, holding his head in his hands. Pulling his hand back he discovered a suspiciously gravy like substance. Upon further inspection he realized that most of his face was covered in it. Man, I just washed too…

"What just happened?" Storm asked softly, laying a soothing hand on his shoulder, carefully avoiding the gravy…

"I don't know." Methos answered truthfully for the second time since he had walked into this place. Being around such goody goodies was definitely having a bad influence.

"That has never happened to me before, its like this place reminded me of something that I _really_ don't want to remember."

Scott and Logan helped him to stand and Methos glanced around. That murmur was much lower now in the crowded room. Most eyes were on him and his suspicious gravy stains. Methos lowered his eyes and did his best impression of being uninteresting.

Just when his skin was beginning to crawl from the effect of all those starring eyes, Scott maneuvered him once again out of the Cafeteria and into the hallway.

"Look, I don't know what that was back there, but I am going to get you to bed so you can rest."

Methos started to mention his continual lack of a shower and his recent gravy incident but decided that the Cyclops was probably right. He still felt a bit wombly and his head felt less than fine.

Nodding in what he hoped was a sagely and intelligent manner, Methos mustered what little dignity he could while dripping gravy and motioned for Scott to lead the way. He decided to ignore his lack of dinner, he had skipped meals before, and if all else failed, he could lick his clothes clean. Besides, it wasn't worth risking another mysterious attack. It was all too much… the going to the school, the memories… the uncertainty.

Suddenly Methos felt very tired indeed.


	8. How Methos Finally Gets a Shower

_Another Update! Argh! No one die of excitement. I promise this is most likely a fluke. Well, may be not. A few notes before we begin. I used a free translator for the section with foreign languages so if the grammar is horribly off… well just take the joke in the spirit it was meant. And of course Methos can still think in English, we don't think in words after all. That should be all… thank you all for reviewing so quickly. I know my chapters are rather short but it is where the breaks in action naturally fall so… just trust that I will try to keep up updating frequently so you shall not suffer for much longer._

Enjoy….  
……….

Methos walked down the hall quickly, visions of showerheads dancing in his mind. He was in such a hurry to be shown to his room that he almost forgot himself and walked ahead of Scott to the dorm area. Mustn't let the nice mutants know that he was in no danger of being lost. Distantly Methos knew that keeping such a thing secret was silly but it seemed lately that he was a bundle of mysteries and disappearing secrets, it felt nice to cling to something that only he knew. Methos ran his hand along the paneling as they walked, feeling the inconsistencies in the wood grain and the gaps between board. As they walked on the wood began to feel cold under his hands, the wood changed to the feeling of concrete and he was swept off to another time for the second time that night.

……

He crept silently around the corner, keeping his hand against the wall to keep his bearing in the dark facility. Screams and moans echoed through the empty room and Methos felt his heart lurch. Somewhere in this hellish place they were killing them. With a muffled sob, Methos pushed away the mental images that sprang to mind when he thought of what they must be doing and concentrated on not getting lost. His hand ran over three irregular bumps in the concrete wall and Methos struck out in a straight line away from the wall. Somewhere along this line lay the doorway that he was seeking. There was no way to find the entrance without knowing the signs to look for. Shuffling as quietly as he could Methos kept his hand running along the concrete floor following the almost invisible line carved into the flooring. This line would guide him to the doorway he need to access the medical ward. It was from that door that the screams issued and that was his ill-fated destination.

….

Groan. Ugh. Ack…. Moan, whimper….

Metho's conscious thoughts were anything but enlightening. It felt like a company of tiny beings had taken residence behind his eyes and were pounding away steadily. He felt like someone had beaten him up and left for him for dead. Wishing heartily that he could die so the healing would take place faster and he could be free from this agony, Methos struggled to open his eye lids. A sticky substance of questionable origin glued his left eye shut but the other eye cooperated admirably.

He was greeted with the sight of white fluorescent lights glaring down at him from the ceiling. With the new information, Methos informed his confused inner-ear that he was indeed prostrate on a flat surface.

A shadowy figure drifted into Methos' field of vision and he found himself staring up at the fuzzy outline of human head. Soon another one joined the first and distantly Methos realized that they were speaking. Deciding that that might be important he turned his attention to ascertaining what they were saying.

"Is he alright?" Asked the more feminine floating head.

"I think so, he just keeled over when we were walking. I brought him down here when I couldn't wake him up," Scott replied.

From somewhere behind his head he heard a mature masculine voice speak, "He's awake now."

Somewhere in the back of his mind Methos realized that this exchange should make sense but he was having a difficult time figuring out what language they spoke in. Surely it sounded rather Germanic but the inflection was a little off. It sounded almost like what the Saxons in the North had picked up. English or something…. But these people seemed educated, maybe they knew welsh…

"Anerchiadau." Methos volunteered.

The fuzzy heads looked at him quizzically, clearly not understanding his greeting.

"Quis lingua es vos narro" He tried again, surely they spoke Latin… didn't everyone speak latin these days?

"What language is that?" The man who Methos knew was named Scott asked the female…Storm…

"I think it's latin… but why is he speaking latin?"

Methos felt that he was starting to recognize the words but he still need more time. A pair of cool hands rested on either side of his head and he felt a gentle nudge in his mind, urging him towards the part of himself that knew what the hell was going on.

Feeling a bit more himself, Methos tried one more time to communicate, the language he spoke felt odd on his tongue but he had nothing to lose…

"What day is it? What century is it?"

That elicited a slight chuckle from everyone in the room.. oh haha… they thought he was joking… Methos frowned slightly, it had been a genuine question from his end.

Gingerly he reached up and touched the sticky substance that coated half his face and most of his clothing. Pulling his hand away he examines the residue on his fingers and found a strange brownish red colored substance. The brown he remembered finally, was gravy from his adventure earlier. The red must have been blood from when he had done a face-plant in the hallway upstairs.

Realization flooded back and Methos was himself again. Struggling to sit up, he looked around and noted a large amount of very sterile looking objects and a suspicious lack of anything resembling the hallway he had been in just a moment before.

Having invaded this house once already, Methos knew that he was in the lower halls of the school where the mutants had their high-tech gadgets and other things that they might not want open to the general public, including the very powerful psychic amplifier CEREBRO.

A gentle hand pressed him back down onto the table on which he was prone.

"Please stay calm, we think you may have suffered a concussion."

Methos scoffed, "People don't get concussions from falling down."

"No but they do from letting their head impact the corner of a solid oak table at an unsafe velocity." Scott chimed in helpfully.

Methos groaned and the tiny creatures hammering inside his head began again with renewed vigor.

"How long have I been out?" He inquired.

"Only a few hours. Scott brought you down here after you suffered another incident on the way to your room." Xavier replied from behind him. For it was he who had mentally nudged Methos back into the present day.

Nodding brought a new wave of pain and Methos waited a few moments for it to pass over before he made to stand up. The gentle hand pressed him down again and he looked up to see Storm staring concernedly at him.

"Please lie still, we need to see how bad your head is before you can be allowed to move."

Methos could feel already that his headache was improving. It was slowly changing from the sort of headache caused by heavy objects impacting one's skull to the headache of someone who was slowly regaining repressed memories and who was in dire need of a shower. He reached a hand up and patted Storms slender hand resting on his shoulder.

"I thank you for your concern," He offered with what he hoped was a polite smile, "But I really will be okay and I really want to go to my room now."

That was stated clearly enough he thought, but after a few minutes he could tell that they were not going to let him go. Fine, Methos thought grumpily, I can be insistent.

"I heal really fast okay, I will be fine. Shower, my kingdom for a shower." He gestured to the gravy/blood that was slowly congealing into a sticky mess on his face. Had the clothes not already been ruined he would have included them in the gesture, but anyone with half a brain could tell that they were goners.

…..

Outside the mansion the man moved silently around the exterior if the school. The shrubbery barely moved as he ghosted through the woods, peering in the windows. The normal interaction of the students within the building where beneath his concern, he had one goal in being there. The man who should have died. A secret lay buried in his memory, a secret that must never be discovered by anyone. Every moment he stayed in that school brought him closer to remembering. This was something that the man could not allow to happen.

After completing two whole circuits around the building the man was beginning to become worried. No where in the living quarters was the man to be found. Fingering his knife, he thought about what course of action to take. He knew that there were levels within the mansion that he could not access from outside but the risk of going in alone was too great.

A wicked smile spread slowly across his face. He was patient, it wouldn't be long before his moment would come. Soon, it would have to be soon, but after all tomorrow was another day.

…..

The trio of mutants glanced at each other before Xavier game the other two a discreet nod. Slowly they moved away to let Methos sit up. Quickly seizing the opportunity he gained verticality and without much further ado was ushered off to a room and best of all to poor addled Methos, a shower.


	9. How Methos Finds Himself Needed

Flighty mused hog tied, chained and otherwise fastened to my shoulder in the most inspirational way possible.

Gatorade at the ready, hair pulled back and glasses cleaned… keyboard status…clacky. English muffin… armed and buttered.

That's right boys and girls… :knuckles cracked: its writing time.

* * *

The beginning of the next day was a fairly lonely affair. The other adults were teaching their respective classes and those that weren't, Logan mostly, were not exactly the talkative sort. At least, not to him.

Methos sought to amuse himself by taking another long shower. The hot water beat onto his back and shoulders with a comforting pressure. Breathing deeply in the steamy air and scrubbing his face and hair vigorously served to keep his mind from wandering where he did not want it to go. But, all too soon it was time to get out of the shower and dry off. As soon as he stepped out of the white porcelain enclave he was hit with the reality of yesterday. The uncertainty about his mysterious fainting spells was the chief subject on his mind. Dressing quickly Methos tried to keep his thoughts at bay as he put on the clothes that were laid out thoughtfully on his bed. They were a little loose but better than what he came in.

After a few moments hesitation Methos grabbed his sword out of his coat and made his way to the spacious backyard of the mansion.

Outside it was relatively quiet. Morning still hung over the world and it seemed that even the birds were loathe to break the silence. Methos flicked the blade around a few times to loosen his muscles and soon filled the air with the sound of a whooshing blade as he ran through his exercises. His muscles were more than used to the dance between force and balance that kept a blade steady and true and the ancient immortal was able to set his body on a flurry of moves and then turn inwardly to have a long and angsty introspection.

_What was the meaning of his memories? What little he had gotten from the vivid flashes the day before were still crystal clear in his memory. But what was still hidden from him? What more was there? In his time as a mortal and an immortal he had seen and done many things, what could he have seen that would be so bad as to bury itself so deep into his memory_? These were questions that seemed to have no answer. His sword dance mirrored his frustration and his moves became more aggressive, less fluid but more powerful.

_In those_ dreams _he had been running back to something… a room. _

Without warning his knees buckled and he pitched forward out of a complicated parry into a chaotic jumble. By sheer force of will he beat back unconsciousness and resumed his moves. Around him were mutant children and adults practicing their powers or playing. No one noticed the mentally imbalanced stranger with a big sharp sword.

Settling back into his routine he let his mind drift backward, tentatively, wary of another episode. These fainting spells weren't natural, they had the taint of interference on them, as if someone had ensured that he would be thoroughly discouraged from ever trying to dredge up this memory. Whoever they had been had underestimated him. The very trap that was to ensure his avoidance only teased him onward. They had taken his will and self-control for who knew how many years, there was no way they could take this from him.

Letting his sword tip fall to the ground he stood panting in the now mid-morning light. More children had made their way into the backyard and he watched as a small group started a game of hide and seek. He chuckled as he listened to the ring leaders explain to the child who could turn invisible why he couldn't use his powers during the game.

Shaking his head he turned to go inside. He needed quiet for what he was about to do. Moving back to his room he settled onto the bed in a comfortable position and laid his sword beside him. Methos then closed his eyes and listened to his breathing. Falling deeper into his meditation he turned his attention inward. This was no time for lazy introspection, this memory deserved to be found and dragged into the light.

Warily he realized how out of character this whole situation was. He wasn't exactly the type to seek out painful memories, in fact he had become quite skilled at avoiding all memories of his past. Unlike some of the immortals he had known, he wasn't exactly into a flashback every episode. But here he was, purposefully bringing to light something in his past that had obviously been violent or painful. Perhaps it was because of all that had been taken from him, he felt at some level perhaps that this recollection would give him back some of his feeling of control. But when it came down to it, Methos decided, that he was just tired of running.

Methos started his search by dragging out the pieces that he had already found. He pictured the dark hallway in which he had found himself walking, he remembered the feel of the concrete. He pictured his dream, saw the bright red door and heard the voices that always rang out in his dreams. But he came to where his last flash had ended and came up against a blank wall.

He concentrated, begged and coerced his memory but nothing else would come. His left ear itched, his back ached… concentration kept slipping away just as he got close to the next step in his memory. He fell deeper into himself, loosing almost all awareness of his outside form and dug into his memory…

Nothing.

Distantly he was aware that the pattern of air currents in his room had changed. A person had walked into his room. Abandoning his meditation he surfaced back into reality. There was definitely someone in the room and they were calling his name. Reacting on instinct borne of long years of self-preservation his hand shot out and grabbed the intruder, spinning them around until he had them trapped in a head lock.

Coming back to full awareness, he noted first the reddish hair and then the white streak that framed her face.

"Rogue…Don't you know enough to not bother jumpy people when they are sleeping?"

Releasing her, she stood quickly and turned to face him, rubbing the skin around her neck where he had grabbed her with one dainty gloved hand.

"It's important.." She said in her lilting southern voice.

Methos pinched the bridge of his nose. He sensed some more human interaction was in order, he hoped that he didn't faint again.. it was ever so embarrassing. Still, that might mean more clues… As he was weighing the benefits of more bits of memory versus the abject humiliation of fainting Rogue continued.

"We have been looking for you all over, one of the children in missing and you were outside in the backyard just before he turned up missing."

Methos was momentarily distracted by the phrased 'turned up missing' but he reigned in his attention span and set it firmly to the task at hand.

"Which child was it?" As if that would matter, he had only been here a day, he knew the building, not the occupants.

"Let go of my arm…"

Looking down, Methos saw that he had grabbed Rogue's arm when she had mentioned the missing child. Something dark and repressed stirred in his mind….

Fighting to maintain both verticality and consciousness simultaneously, Methos grabbed his sword with his free hand, squeezing until the blade bit into his hand. That bite of pain brought him back to the present and he released Rogue's arm promptly.

Before she could ask how he had twice touched her skin without ill-effects, and before he had time to ponder that question himself, he brushed rudely past the small girl and down the hall towards Xavier's office. He heard her move into the hallway as he retreated quickly but he did not glance back, instead he examined his hand. It was bloody but the cut was already closing. Soon there wouldn't even be a scar.


	10. How Methos Serenades the Bad Guy

The door banged against the wall as Methos strolled into Xavier's office. As he had suspected, the majority of the X-men were in there, discussing.

Scott leaned against the desk, Storm was seated on the couch, Logan was pacing, and Xavier, obviously, was in his wheel chair.

Whatever conversation they had been having died away when Methos made his entrance. Scott stood straight and walked over to Methos, vaguely, Methos was aware that Scott was yelling at him but from long experience he knew that whatever was being said was probably not helpful. Emotional people never focus on the solution when they are busy assigning blame to the problem.

Raising one hand, Methos cut him off.

"None of that is important now, what is important is finding him."

Smoothly Methos fell into a military role. This was a safe, easy role for him. No repressed memories or fainting here, only a goal and the way to it.

Methos looked at Charles expectantly. Scott stood for a moment, dumbfounded by Methos calm response. Storm and Logan looked at Methos with new respect. In just one day he had gone from slightly unstable and unwashed to calmly waiting for information to help them find a lost student.

Charles cleared his throat and began. "We know he is still on the grounds. There is a human with him, possibly his captor. He has been gone since shortly after you stopped your sword practice."

Methos made several connections at once, someone had been watching him practice and he hoped that they had looked away for those few moments when he had stumbled. He also recalled the group of students organizing the hide and seek game.

"They were playing hide and seek…"

"Precisely." Charles confirmed. "One of them was hiding in the woods and that is when we think he was taken."

"But why take the student, and why stay on the grounds?" Logan asked.

"Because who he has taken isn't the end goal. He isn't a kidnapper, this is a hostage situation." Methos intoned in what he hoped was a confident manner. His mind drifted to the movement he had sensed the day before as he approached the mansion. Had that been more than a simple guard? Keeping that information to himself, Methos listened quietly for the duration of the briefing.

The rest of the meeting went along smoothly and soon they and some of the older or more powerful students were divided up into search teams to scour the grounds. Charles was monitoring their location to ensure that the kidnapper and his hostage didn't leave.

Methos and his team melted smoothly into the woods. Night had fallen and all under the trees was in shadow. His group moved with determination but Methos fell behind, letting the gap grow wider and wider between him and his compatriots. He had a nagging suspicion about what was going on.

As the last of the group disappeared into the shadows, Methos walked cautiously deeper into the shadow…

"But one by one, we must all march on through the narrow isle of pain…"

Something about dark and uncomfortable woods made Methos spout poetry… how curious.

Hearing a rustle behind him, Methos gave his instincts a much deserved pat on the back.

"It's me you want isn't it?" Methos asked softly.

A gruff chuckle was his only response. From the shadows before him a fearsome figure emerged. A man, bedecked in faded army fatigues holding a glistening knife to the throat of an obviously terrified child.

Methos noted absently that it was the one who was warned against using their power of invisibility to unfair advantage.

Some small part of Methos mind was screaming, wailing and otherwise raising a ruckus. Here was danger, pain, and possible death. What was one small life in the balance? He could easily incapacitate the soldier and get away. Away from the uncertainty, the doubt, the stress, the fainting. He need never think of this again. In a few hundred years it would be just a distant blur in his past along with everything else. But a long dormant and alien voice called above them all.

It was the voice of reason that said that this child's life was worth it. In all likelihood this horrid vestige of a human being wouldn't be able to kill him. He didn't know how. It would only hurt for a short time but then he would be free of them, free to move on with his life and possibly to ferret out some small part of his past. No one had to die tonight.

Methos hand flexed and relaxed as he debated and longed for the sword that he head left in his room on the bed. Stupid.

"Let her go, I'll do what you ask." Methos choked on the last words, still unable to believe that he was saying them.

The man grinned, the knife nicked the child's throat and a small stream of blood trickled down the blade. Methos felt his anger rise above his calm. His memory stirred but he beat it back. This was not the time. The image of this man's face overlaid in his mind with another location, a similar scene. He had seen this man before…

He was drawn back to the present by the sound of something landing at his feet. Half expecting a body part, he looked warily down. There at his feet lay a pair of handcuffs.

"Put them on." The voice, rough like broken glass and just as sharp came from the knife wielding lunatic.

Methos bent slowly and picked them up, fastening them on one wrist.

"Let her go first."

The man gouged the knife deeper, eliciting a whimper from the captive.

"Let her go, we both know that you aren't here for some nameless girl mutant."

The man chuckled… "You always were a smart one…"

He shoved her gruffly towards a tree. She stumbled and caught herself, looking pleadingly at Methos, he muttered one word, "Run."

Methos braced himself to attack, only to feel a cold blade press against his throat.

"Don't even think about. I'll chop your fragging head off. Now put on the cuffs."

Methos realized with a start that he may have badly under estimated the situation. He cursed himself and just about everything else he could think of. What had he ever done to deserve this amount of bad luck. In the last few weeks he had been trapped in an underground bunker with dead men, drowned, nearly frozen to death, subject to fainting spells, drawn to a place against his better judgement and now he was the hostage of a possibly unstable individual. He was understandably irritated.

Methos put on the last cuff with a snap. Wishing he had something punch, stab and or yell at fiercely. All he wanted was a warm bed and some place to hide out for the next hundred years. Sigh.

To top it all off, the song from the Rolling Stones, You Can't Always Get What You Want, was now stuck in his head. Damn it.

Deciding there was no use in being stealthy when you are already captive, he hummed the song as the man in faded fatigues encouraged him forward with a friendly jab to the ribs with the pointy end of a machete.

"Quit that humming."

Methos hummed louder.

"I said quit it."

Methos sung the words, quickly approaching the chorus.

"Stop…"

Methos belted out the chorus at the top of his lungs.

The hilt of a knife jammed roughly into his left temple ended the song abruptly along with all of Methos conscious thought.


	11. How Methos is Tortured

_Thanks to everyone who alerted me the fact that i had posted the same chapter twice. I have gone back and put the proper chapter in the 10 slot, so if you don't know how Methos got captured... well, go back and read it._

_I apologize once again but can you really blame me, i have been writing like the mad woman that i am to get this done by my deadline..._

* * *

Get back in your BOX!

No, the last time you had a bathroom break I didn't update for a year.

I don't want to hear how hard it can be for muses…

No you do not deserve quality time at a bar.

Don't make me use the whacking stick….

Sorry… now where was i?

* * *

Methos regained consciousness only once on the ride to wherever the soldier was taking him. The rest of the time he floated in a black haze, free of thought and memories. All in all, it was the best sleep he had gotten in weeks.

He wondered languidly during his brief moment of lucidity whether it could be considered mal adjustment when the best sleep you can get is when a crazy man knocks you out for singing the Rolling Stones…

In what seemed like no time at all, Methos found himself chained to the wall in a strange room. The walls were white and blank with a single inadequate light fixture hanging from the ceiling. Concrete showed through the paint in places and somewhere in the corner water dripped steadily onto the floor, leaving a greenish streak that led from the wall to the drain in the center of the room. All in all, a typical torture room, Methos estimation of his captor's originality went down a notch.

This was a new one Methos decided. He couldn't recall a time when he had been chained to the wall. This would certainly be a new experience, it would make a good story next time he had the opportunity to share his, 'You won't believe how I died the other day…' stories with his other immortal acquaintances. Whoever they might be…

Methos knew what phase of torture this was. Somewhere in the building his captors waited. He was supposed to sit and scream or contemplate his fate. Eventually, when it was sure that he was hungry, thirsty and utterly mad with wondering about what was going to happen, they would come with food and water, probably drugged, and act the savior. He would then be expected to fully cooperate out of gratitude.

As the hours passed, Methos found himself not wondering about what would happen but instead thinking on what had happened. Surely this whole thing was connected to whatever lay buried in his mind. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to ensure that he wouldn't be able to recall whatever had gone on.

What then did they hope to gain by torturing him? What questions could he answer? Perhaps they wanted to know what he remembered, or, he thought more likely that they were ordered to kill him and they decided to have some fun first.

As predicted, right about the time that thirst and hunger were beginning to become a major concern, they entered with a tray of food and faces full of false smiles. The one man was familiar, though he had traded his fatigues for a wife beater and khaki's he was undoubtedly the man who had captured him in the first place. His face was still naggingly familiar. The other man was a bit burlier with a decidedly blank expression.

Methos smiled inwardly, _Ahh… the hired muscle. _Without a doubt this was the man who would be doing the grunt work, so to speak. Probably Knife guy would have some fun with sharp things too. Methos knew from experience that everything grew back when he healed, so he continued to remain detached from the situation.

Somewhere inside he realized that he should be pleading, screaming, playing into their schemes, anything… but he realized with a start that perhaps he may have finally found his backbone after all. Shame it took years of captivity to bring it out…

After setting down the tray of food just out of Methos reach, the captors spoke. Well, more specifically, the Knife guy spoke and the Hired muscle grunted affirmative.

"If you just tell us what you know right now, we can end this now and no one needs to get hurt." The Knife guy said, his broken glass voice coated with a thin veneer of sweetness.

The Hired Muscle grunted and cracked his knuckles. Obviously misunderstanding the not hurting part.

"Out of the night that covers me, black as the Pit from pole to pole," Methos replied.

Knife guy walked closer to Methos, almost within his range, and flashed him another false smile, "What did you say?"

"I thank whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul."

The man's face fell into a quizzical mask and he leaned a little closer as if to ask for another line, Methos used that opportunity to punctuate his last line and spit directly into the Knife guy's face.

The man reeled back, knocking over the tray of food and water onto the floor. His face turned a crimson red and his eyes burned with anger. Haltingly he swiped the spittle from his face, glaring at Methos.

Methos took the opportunity to continue, "Under the wide and starry sky dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die."

With no small amount of flourish Methos rose to his feet as best as the chains would allow, and bowed deeply keeping his eyes, and his smiling face, locked onto the Knife guy.

He all but ran from the room, followed closely by the Hired muscle, who was obviously disappointed.

Methos laughed long and hard. It had been a jolly good doing but it had been informative as well. Now, he knew that it was not just for fun that they were torturing him. They had to find something before he was killed, otherwise it would have ended just now.

Methos settled back against the wall and closed his eyes. With that last act he had effectively sped up the process. Normally a refusal of food would lead to another long day of waiting for another offer, with the hope of winning the answers. However, Methos could tell in Knife guy's eyes after what Methos had done that they would skip straight to the hurting phase.

Nothing to do but wait. Methos briefly tried to recapture his memory but he was as unsuccessful as ever. It would just have to come out at the proper time.

The long hours dragged by. The tray of spilled food still lay within a few feet of the limit of his chains but Methos ignored it, he'd died of deprivation first. Soon Methos heard foot steps in the hall again. They were back.

Methos sat with his back against the wall, pretending to sleep, when they entered. He was roused gruffly by a swift kick in the stomach. Methos opened his eyes, slowly, patiently, making a show of focusing and then smiled sweetly.

"How good of you to come back…"

Knife guy twirled his machete, grinning. The dim light caught on its surface and shone into Methos' eyes. Nice touch.

Methos heard the dull scrape of wood on concrete and looked up to see the Hired Muscle bringing in a chair.

Ah… Methos thought to himself… now the hurting was to begin.

They hauled him up and released his chains, holding him roughly the two men forced him into the chair and rebound his hands and feet. Each arm was tied to an arm rest and his ankles were anchored to the legs. A tight rope tied around his middle finished off the ensemble.

"What do you remember?"

"Well, I remember a great many things... perhaps you should be more specific."

That earned him a punch the jaw.

The Knife guys spoke again.

"What do you remember?"

"A hint or something here, at least give me a time table… a year ago, a decade ago… otherwise we could be here all night."

The earned him two punches in the stomach and Knife guy holding his Machete threateningly close to some of Methos' more sensitive bits.

Methos smiled inwardly, he was moving up in the world.

Again Knife guy spoke.

"What do you remember about what happened here?"

Methos rolled his eyes… there was obviously no getting through to this guy.

"I don't remember anything."

As expected, this answer proved unacceptable. A nod from Knife guy and Hired Muscle went to work. Methos remained detached, amazingly. Closing his eyes he sunk into himself, feeling the blows as distant impacts, hardly worth concern. He could feel his body weakening but he didn't feel worried. Even if it was possible to break him, he didn't know anything that he could tell them. He really didn't remember anything about what had happened…. Nothing past walking through that dark hallway to a medical ward of some kind… and he remembered the screaming….

Besides he had been around since torture was invented, these guys were amateurs. Where were the pointy objects? The bolt cutters looming around fingers and toes?

It would be shameful to spill his guts to torturers with so little finesse.

The round of questioning and torture continued for longer than Methos cared to think about. The whole time he remained apart from what was happening as if watching from the side lines. They would come and question than dump him and leave him for a while to stew in his own rapidly failing body.

They tried water, they tried knives… and Methos could never remember clearly but he had a sneaking suspicion that they had tried Liberace records.

Methos gave them only what he knew, Shakespeare, Yeats, Browning, Frost, Keats… Streisand… Although his rendition of Wind Beneath My Wings had earned him the brass knuckles.

Eventually, during one small break as they allowed him to recover enough to at least rasp out an answer if he could possibly give one, Methos felt his body give out. He felt the familiar touch of death steal over his body. But instead of finding the usual black space between dying and returning, as he sunk into oblivion he fell into the waiting arms of memory.


	12. How Methos Finally Remembers

In the years since mutants had first begun to appear the Watchers had stepped up to watch them too. They had appointed themselves the unofficial chroniclers of new mutants, their locations, and their powers. They even monitored a few of the more powerful ones. Methos had dabbled with them for a time, joining their new branch and tailing around mutants. That was why he had been in that bar watching the mob on that fateful day that he had met Charles for the first time.

Because of his aptitude for finding new mutants, a product of previous experience with the watchers and his own rich history of avoiding detection, Methos was assigned to solve a riddle that had been plaguing the new Mutant branch of the watchers.

It seemed that an unusual number of young mutants were disappearing. They were literally falling off the map overnight.

Methos took it because it presented something of a challenge. At least it would be something to spice up his life. Recently his life had become somewhat… boring. That is to say.. uneventful and completely and mind numbingly empty.

No one to torment, no one to harass or annoy with vague suggestions, it was shameful.

It didn't take Methos long to find the pattern in the abductions. Whoever was taking the mutants obviously didn't think that someone would be looking for them. The area of abduction was wide, but it had clear boundaries. The majority of the mutants were taken in a 100 mile circular area. At the center, was the warehouse district in an obscure city, a likely staging place for this operation.

Methos was embarrassed by how easy it was to find out what was going on. Sigh.

It was easy enough to drive into the obscure town at the center of the circular abduction area. It was doubly easy to remotely hack into the power company's records and find out which of the warehouses was drawing the most power. Keeping that many mutants captive meant a lot of guards and a lot of lights. He'd have hacked the water company too but the power spike was so obvious that Methos felt no need to bother.

It was all too easy, all too quick. Methos felt his sense of foreboding rise. Pushing it back down Methos started preparing to infiltrate the warehouse. He figured this was just some rogue group who thought they were saving the world from mutants. It was probably just a couple of cages and a couple crazy people who could be reasoned with or dispatched quickly. If all else failed, Methos could at least call the police and have them do his dirty work. They wouldn't go out of their way for mutants but Methos only had to drop the words children and kidnapping and they would be out in no time. Certainly someone would have noticed and notified them that an unusually large number of kids had gone missing recently.

Just to be cautious, Methos dressed in his best stealthy gear, all black and silent… in other words… stealthy.

Methos went out at night, approaching the warehouse on foot. The outside windows were dark and grimy with no sign of light. Methos raised his estimation of their skill a little more. At least they knew enough to keep their captives towards the center of the building and away from the windows where they might be spotted by a passer by.

Methos crept stealthily up to a side access door and plied his lock picking skills on the rusty door lock. It gave way as easily as everything else in this investigation. Methos pulled back the rickety wood slowly, wary of creeks and found himself staring into a pitch black interior. Not a shred of light from any windows leaked inside. It even seemed like the light from outside the door didn't touch the gloom.

Swallowing his rising foreboding once again, Methos marched boldly inward. As soon as the door shut behind him, he was swallowed in the gloom. He could use a flashlight but that might reveal him, he had to keep the element of surprise.

Feeling along the wall he found a small patch of dots directly to the left of the door, at arm level. Methos recognized as braille within a few minutes of puzzling it out. Although his skills were rusty he was able to make it out…

_One: Records_

_Two: Medical/Lab_

_Three: Bathroom_

The list went on but Methos' heart stilled at the second line… Medical/Lab…

A sinking suspicion settled heavily onto his chest. A small exclamation escaped his lips… "Oh no…"

The visions of red-neck prejudice types whole up in rustic conditions with a couple of hostages suddenly disappeared from his mind. Disappearing mutant children plus medical could only mean one thing and it wasn't the pursuit of quality mutant health care… it meant experiments.

Methos had seen it before, especially at the beginning of the mutant era. Mutants used as lab rats for testing or in the pursuit of military uses.

Methos waged a brief private war with himself. It was obvious that something was going on here but finding out more or trying to intervene could, and most likely would, lead to pain and death. Pain and death versus walking away and working through whatever guilt he might feel by doing something else helpful for the next decade or so. The choice should have been an obvious one, in fact he was already turning to go back out the door when he heard a shrill scream ring in the darkness.

It was so full of emotion and pain and it shot right through Methos as sure as an arrow. Methos froze. Something inside him was stirring, a need to help, to free those children. His report had said that none of the captives were out of their teens. Most had just hit puberty, the prime age for mutant powers to emerge.

Deep down, Methos felt a certain affinity for these mutants. They carried a burden that he knew all too well, difference. Where had had watched countless generations of loved ones decay and fall to dust, they had to watch as everyone they had known turned their back on them, calling them freaks and buying into the current anti-mutant sentiment. They had to watch their race slandered by politicians and community leaders and even their own parents.

Methos paused with his hand on the doorjamb. The wood creaked under his fingers as he fought with himself. It was in his nature to run. It had been so for as long as he could remember. But this time maybe it was different, this time, maybe he shouldn't run.

Cursing, he turned back towards the braille sign. He knew this was going to lead to pain… _Stupid old man, can't leave well enough alone…_But, pain went away… the memory of that scream surely wouldn't.

It took only a few more moments to find the line in the concrete wall that led away into the darkness. Methos could not tell from the few noises that he did chance making just how big the area was that he was in, but he dared not take his hand away from the wall. It was possibly his only way back. As he walked along he felt a break in the line with a perpendicular intersecting line leading down and away. Above it was a single word in braille… One. And so the mystery was solved. Methos continued along the line, letting the cold concrete pass beneath his fingers. In no time he found another intersecting line, this one marked with the word 'two.' Methos grimaced… the end to this mystery was near… far too near. He was half hoping that finding the medical ward would prove impossible, unfortunately he was dealing with idiots.

He traced the line down the floor and beyond, leaving the comforting presence of the concrete outer wall he struck out into the darkness, his body crouched low, hand following the nearly undetectable line that ran off into the darkness. As he walked sounds began to make their way to him, more screams and moans. Shouts and low voices filtered through the darkness to caress his ears.

At least he knew he was going in the right direction.

Soon a light became visible and Methos felt a momentary sense of relief. The light consisted of a dull red glow that was coming from around what looked like an average size doorway, reaching it Methos felt around the door. It was nothing but cold concrete walls on either side, no more signs or anything.

Running his hands along the door itself he found the door knob. Mentally bracing himself, he turned the knob and pushed the door open just a small increment. Methos peeked cautiously in.

What he could see in that small slice of room almost made him want to tuck tail and run. It also, ironically, steeled his determination about what he should do.

Within his sight were several small cages the size of dog kennels. Children of varying ages and sex were crammed into them, stacked on top of one another like chicken's on a transport truck.

Most of them were crying or screaming but several of them were starring blankly off in the distance. Methos knew from studying the file on the kidnappings that some of their faces matched those in the files on the earliest taken.

These children who showed no signs of struggle were dressed in hospital robes. Their heads were shaven and an ugly scar ran across the front of their scalps as if someone had removed and replaced a front quarter of their skulls.

It was horrendous. Methos knew enough of what the Nazi's did to their captives in World War Two to know a frontal lobotomy when he saw one. These children had been raped in the worst way possible, their very personalities had been removed.

Opening the door the rest of the way Methos moved to stand in the door way. The rest of the room was worse. An operating table with dingy instruments. More children in cages. The smell of human filth was overwhelming and that was just the start. Many of the older girls huddled beaten in their cages, their lower clothing torn and stained with blood or worse.

Methos had apparently caught the night guard at an indisposed moment. The man was busy relieving himself on one of the mutants staring blankly at something only she could see. By the looks of her cage and hospital robe, it was a habitual thing for the guard.

Startled by Methos' unexpected entrance the man quickly collected himself and drew his weapon, pointing it at Methos. Methos noted that the man had a long machete hanging from his belt, that could prove problematic if he had the opportunity to draw it.

Not that he would get the opportunity.

"Hey are you the new guy?" The man asked, never dropping his gun.

Methos held out his hands and smiled as jovially as he could muster, "Yup, that's me."

"Yeah, well their ain't supposed to be a new guy, so I guess that makes you dead."

The man moved to shoot, obviously pleased with his elegant sentence and not wanting to ruin the mood with more word play. But, before he could squeeze the trigger Methos was moving. He rammed into the man, shoulder hitting him and knocking him against a wall of cages.

Methos completed his momentum and used it to force the man onto the ground. Grabbing the back of the man's head, Methos rammed it into the floor. Dazed but conscious the man continued to struggle. Methos held him pinned the ground with little effort. Despite the man's bulk, it was obvious that he hadn't really been working out lately. Grabbing the back of the Knife guy's neck, Methos rammed his head into the floor again, this time knocking him out cold.

Standing, Methos began searching the man's body for keys to the cages. Instead what he found was a remote clasped in the man's right hand, his thumb still pressed on the button. The device had a small light that was blinking rapidly. Methos looked around and didn't see any other blinking lights, nor did he hear any sound, but he knew from experience that that didn't mean an alarm hadn't been activated. Running to the only doorway, Methos shut the door quickly. Locating the lock, a simple dead bolt, he quickly turned the knob to lock it. That wouldn't hold them for long, but he could use all the time he could get.

Sprinting back to the body, Methos redoubled his efforts to find a key, he quickly located a card and walked up to a cage door, sliding the card in the lock, it sprang open instantly. He tried another cage, the same thing. As he moved to the third cage, he heard shuffling in the hallway outside. They were here.

Quickly, Methos showed one of the emerging children how to open the cages.

"Just open as many as you can, everyone stay back, I will try to clear us a path."

The child gestured at the children in hospital gowns with the blank expressions, "What about them?"

For the first time in eons, Methos choked back a small sob, "Leave them."

The child nodded, his eyes glistening suddenly with unshed tears.

Methos turned back to the door. He didn't feel like crying anymore. With the room of horrors at his back and untold numbers of foes before him, all he felt like was little gratuitous violence.

The door swung open and banged against the wall, the onslaught moved in immediately. The first six fell with bullet wounds to the chest. When the Knife guy's gun was empty, Methos waded in with his machete.

All the reinforcements were dressed in army fatigues. Most were wielding standard army issue weaponry. That was why the police hadn't investigated any of this yet, that was why the warehouse door hadn't been guarded or reinforced, why the pattern had been so easy, why all of it had been so easy. It was because this wasn't a secret operation, this level of military support meant that this place was government sanctioned and supported. The guards were merely a formality, someone to be there to set of the alarm in case something like this happened. They were prepared for this kind of rescue mission; why else would there be so many men on reserve? It took a lot of men to take down a mutant and Methos could see that that was the only resistance they expected. The only people they expected to care were other mutants. It was a good thing he was already acting out his aggression or a wall somewhere would be really sorry right now.

As long as Methos stayed within the doorway he could block the oncoming invaders and take them down with the machete. The close press of bodies made it nearly impossible to use their firearms. But, he could tell that he was weakening, he couldn't keep this up indefinitely and he had no idea how long they could keep this up or what else they had waiting.

As if in answer to his question he heard an explosion from behind him. The children were huddled in one corner, their eyes wide like frightened rabbits but as soon as they saw the new opening in the wall and the soldiers streaming through it, they went to work.

Blessedly, there was a small break as more reinforcements had to pick there way through the no man's land of bodies that blocked the entrance to the medical room.

Panting, Methos used the momentary lull.He turned to the children and gestured to the hole in the wall.

"Run."

A few ran to the wall but the others moved as if to help him.

"No, Run, Please. Make this worth it."

Luckily and happily for Methos, they did as he asked. They ran.

As the last disappeared through the back exit, that the first wave of guards had made, into the outside street Methos sighed in relief. Even if those children encountered reinforcements on their way out, they would be fine. It was a better chance for survival than staying in here anyways.

Speaking of which, the next wave was coming, Methos could see their flashlights moving across the open warehouse floor. Turning to look back into the room, Methos averted his eyes from the still forms of the children who were left behind and let his eyes roam over the shelf of chemicals stored in convenient glass containers.

Selecting a few, Methos broke them open and scattered their contents all around the room. The first of the new onslaught who were responding to the alarm barged through the door to see Methos smiling…

"Is that gasoline I smell?"

One of the more bright soldiers in the bunch shot at Methos, the bullet flew straight and hit Methos in the chest, puncturing his lung and going straight through his heart, killing him instantly. But the gun also ignited the fumes in the room, causing an explosion that rocked the whole warehouse.

No one ever accused Methos of not knowing how to make a great exit.

The last thing that Methos could recall about that night was waking up in the smoldering remains of the lab. He rolled over, recovering his senses, only to come face to face with a man smiling down at him.

"That was good work son. I think I might be able to find some use for you."

The smiling man looked up as someone called from a distant part of the still burning warehouse,

"Mr. Stryker, there is no one alive over here either…"

The man looked back at Methos, still smiling.

"Yes you will be useful indeed."


	13. How Methos Rants and is Rescued

This time when Methos awoke, he half expected Stryker to still be there, waiting, with a syringe of that vile poison to enslave him again. Instead he was greeted by the cold chill of concrete and an ache that was fast disappearing as his body healed.

Rolling groggily over, Methos found a face smiling down on him. He gave a start, yelping weakly. But instead of Stryker, it was a face he had never seen before, not Knife guy or his friend, it was another man entirely. His hair was silver, his face lined with wrinkles. The rest of his body was lean, toned but not bulky. His hands were long and slender, surgeon's hands.

"My associates say that you might be ready to talk now…your body won't last much longer you know."

Methos grunted in reply, hoping he still sounded beaten and culled.

"I can make the pain last for a long time you know, I can draw out your last breath until you beg me for death."

With his last statement, the man had leaned over to breath his words directly into Methos' face where he lay, curled on his side on the floor.

Methos made a show of shifting slightly to get away, moving until he was in the perfect position to kick out the man's knees if he felt the need. Methos buried his face in his hands, playing the part of broken prisoner. He could hear the man smiling in his next words…

"If you just tell me, I can make all the pain go away…"

What a lame line, Methos thought to himself. He should just stick to death threats and leave the mercy parade to the movies.

"Just tell me how you found us, how you knew to look for the missing mutants… who was your informer?"

Oh… Methos thought, that was what they wanted to know. This man thought that he had been given away by a spy, a mole somewhere in the government.

Well, now things made a bit more sense.

Methos drew a raspy breath, pretending to still be in pain…

"How did you find me?"

The man laughed, "I am the one asking questions, but since I don't think you are likely to leave here…" The man kicked Methos fiercely in the stomach, "I suppose I could answer. We have been watching you for sometime. We recognized your face from the surveillance footage taken in the lab but didn't want to reveal ourselves until you made contact with your source again. When your last post was destroyed we lost track of you until you showed up at Xavier's. We have been watching them for some time, no one there has any connections to our operation so they couldn't be your informers…It wasn't clear at first if you would even remember after all this time, but it was decided that we should act and try to ferret out your informer before you moved again."

Methos lay quietly, hugging his stomach and thinking. So it was Stryker who had blocked his memory. Probably as some kind of payment for keeping him among his pets and not turning him over to the government for processing. He also knew now, that this man was impatient and an idiot, a poor combination, but a potentially useful one. That might mean that security beyond the door may not be all that tough, he was probably operating alone, trying to get valuable information that could give him a handle come promotion time. That would explain the two crack pot torturers. I might also mean small number of personnel…

"Are you ready to talk?" The man asked.. leaning in close to Methos face, Ah, Methos thought, clever man, using bad breath as the final form of torture. Tic tac's…aisle four.

Methos nodded slowly, hoping that the remaining blood on his face covered the fact that all his cuts and bruises were gone…

The man smiled again… "Good."

Methos swallowed loudly and painfully, "A long, long time ago… I… I can still remember…"

The man's smile became triumphant.

"How that music used to make me smile…" Methos continued.

The man's face fell, surprised. Methos cracked one eye and shot him his most mischievous grin, allowing his voice to grow slightly in strength.

"And I knew if I had my chance, that I could make those people dance and maybe, they'd be happy for awhile."

The man punched Methos squarely in the face, which did nothing to diminish the mirth of Methos' hardy laugh.

The man reeled back to stand over Methos again.

"They warned me about you. You like poetry do you? Well how's this…Pain has an element of blank; it cannot recollect when it began, or if there were a day when it was not. It has no future but itself, its infinite realms contain its past, enlightened to perceive new periods of pain."

"Dickinson, very clever, but how about Henley's Invictus? Out of the night that covers me, black as the Pit from pole to pole, I think whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud, Under the bludgeoning of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."

The man smiled without mirth, full instead, of hatred. "That was my lab you blew up, did you know that? You stupid child, that was my life's work. I was close too, soon those children would have been weapons, nothing but mindless puppets to be used in times of war. Their destructive force would have been unparalleled."

Methos sat up slowly, staring into the man's eyes.

"They were children."

"They were mutants, not even human. I wouldn't expect someone like you, someone who knows nothing of the world, to understand."

Methos began to laugh. At first it was soft, a chuckled but it grew in strength until it rang out in the small room, loud and mirthless. He laughed at all that had happened, laughed at the lost years, and most of all, he laughed at this man. This pathetic infant telling him that he knew nothing of the world.

"I have walked this earth for as long as there has been history, and before it. I stood on the same stage as Julius Caesar and the Rolling Stones. You quote Dickinson, I had tea with her! Yet always the world has been invested with insects like you, pathetic minded individuals who think only of violence and conquest. Violence fades, passion fades, but friendship, love… those last. You will fade away into nothingness and dust. You are nothing."

As Methos spoke he felt a faint call in the back of his mind, almost like sensing another immortal but somehow different, as if someone were yelling from far away, telling him that help was on the way.

Xavier.

Methos smiled. He stood slowly, making sure that the man noticed that they hadn't refastened his chains.

"You…"

But that was all he had time to say before Methos was on him. It wasn't quick, or painless, but it was effective and by the time the X-Men came barging through the door, it was all over.

There had only been two guards, the Knife guy and the Hired Muscle, Methos could see them laying motionless, just beyond the door.

Methos left the man's lifeless body on the ground, standing he suddenly felt all his aches that had yet to fade and the night's without rest. He felt haggard, but he mustered a smile for his rescuers, Logan, Storm and Cyclops.

Cyclops looked down at the man and back up into Methos eyes, surprised to find Methos in such good condition, considering.

"Sorry we took so long." Scott summers added playfully, relieved.

"I have all the time in the world." Methos offered, smiling.


	14. How Methos becomes Methos Again

_Bum bum bum... Finally, The final chapter..._

* * *

The trip back to the mansion was uneventful. Methos made all the appropriate noises about how much he admired and adored the jet. It was a nice jet… had he been any less of a moral man, or had any place to park it, he might just procure it for himself. 

Once again he found himself in Xavier's office, surrounded by the X-Men. The past few days or weeks of pain seemed surreal, like they had happened to someone else. But he was thankful that he had finally found the source of his horrid dreams. One more mystery unearthed, he could move on. He no longer felt the need to stay here, he knew they were safe. It was time to take up his robes as elusive-ridiculously-ancient-immortal-guy and he was glad for it. All these moral debates and introspection gave him a headache.

Storm sat beside him on the couch, Logan was leaning on the desk again and Scott was standing beside Xavier who, obviously, was not standing.

Storm laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Methos was thankful that they had given him time to shower and dress before they called him here. It was terribly embarrassing to sit next to a pretty lady when one was smelly from a round of torture.

Xavier offered Methos a small frown, obviously tired and vexed. "I am sorry that we could not find you sooner and spare you from whatever it was they did to you…"

He was sincere in his apology, his posture and facial expression made it clear that he blamed himself for what had happened to Methos. Methos smiled reassuringly, "I'm sure I deserved it for something."

Xavier shook his head, still frowning, "I couldn't find you… You were in both the human and the mutant spectrum but so faint… I could fix only on a broad area where you might be… it took us too long to find you…"

Methos held us his hand, silencing him, "It is alright, I promise. How could you expect to find me when you didn't even know what you were looking for."

"What?" Scott asked, puzzled.

"He means," Logan offered gruffly, "That we have assumed he was either mutant or human, but not that he might be something different altogether."

"Sharp as a tack that one is." Laughed Methos, "That's precisely what I mean."

It was a testament to what he had gone through that Methos felt comfortable sharing such a thing with these people. They never need know the truth. But, he felt a certain kinship with them. They were all hunted people here. Hunted and hunters. Besides, sometimes it was nice to brag to people you knew would appreciate it.

"From childhood's hour I have not been as others were; I have not seen as others saw; I could not bring my passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken my sorrow; I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone; and all I loved, I loved alone."

"Poe." Xavier said, as Methos finished. Methos nodded, smiling.

"There was a time, when we were searching for you that you disappeared entirely. It wasn't for more than a few hours but it was as if you had died, and indeed we thought that you had. But when we had almost given up hope you reappeared, clear and sharp on both spectrums for a moment than fading again to what you had been before. That was how we found your location… what happened?" Xavier asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"That must have been when I died." Methos said plainly.

Storm's hand on his shoulder tightened momentarily. He looked at her, smiling, "Don't worry, I have a hard time staying dead."

"What are you then?" Logan asked

"What are you? What is anybody? I am myself, I am a man that cannot die." Methos said, deciding to edit out the specifics on that tiny detail, he wasn't stupid.

"How did you come to be this way?" Storm asked, curious…

"How did the stone become a stone? Because it always was a stone. I became this way because this is the way I have always been, I cannot remember being elsewise."

Methos felt proud of that one, circular logic was always fun.

"How old are you?" Storm asked.

Now that was a question that Methos had not intended to answer. He was having just about enough of show and tell time. Ignorance was safety when it came to survival. However, he was betrayed…

"5,000 give or take…" Xavier gasped… taking the answer from Methos' automatic thoughts…

"Hey," he said, looking at Xavier, "That's cheating." Then he turned to Storm and offered her a dazzling smile, "But don't worry dear, in my heart I'm not a day over 400."

Scott broke the momentary silence by asking an obvious but complex question,

"What will you do now?"

Methos thought for a moment then smiled and stood, "I think that I am going to get some sleep."

Methos left that night. He slipped out his window and into the night, melting away as if he had never existed. It was time to be elusive again, to fall back into his role as a living myth. Maybe he would look up Mac again, surely the silly sod was still around somewhere. Life was so much more entertaining when there was someone around to astound and annoy.

He left the grounds of the mansion and went into the outside world without even a backward glance.

It was good to be Methos again.

* * *

Later that day, in Cerebro, Xavier sat, concentrating. He skimmed through the red mutant spectrum, the white human though patterns than he focused on Methos specifically, remembering the feel of his thoughts... when he opened his eyes he saw the one faint dot that was Methos brighten and turn golden, then one by one, more dots began to appear and soon there were hundreds of them. All over the world. As he watched, new spots glared bright white and then glowed golden, a new immortal being born... Xavier smiled, removing the head piece. Sighing softly he turned to go teach his class, he hoped he wasn't late.

* * *

_Oh goodness… I am finished… dear me…. That was argh, ah, rough. That's right, it has been a bumpy ride. When I posted this schlop so many years ago I didn't think that anyone was going to read it. But then people started reviewing it, so I updated it once or twice, but you silly buggers.. .WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE. :) not that I am angry.. but it did push me to make a silly promise which I have kept in due course. So HA! I am done. Fin._

As promised, here are the poems.

Alone: By Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been as others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then-in my childhood, in the dawn of a most stormy life-

Was drawn from every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightening in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

* * *

Requiem, Robert Louis Stevenson

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the Grave and let me lie.

Glad did i live and gladly die,

and laid me down with a will.

This be the verse that you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be,

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

and the hunter home from the hill.

* * *

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.. Methos says in total in the story.

Pain has an element of blank; by Emily Dickinson is also printed in total..

* * *

_Now to go work on my novel.. yes i am writing a novel... wish me luck._

Rachel Oke


	15. How Muse decides to Visit Me: Teaser

I woke up this morning and she was there. Sitting daintily on my shoulder with a polite expression was my muse. She flashed her tiny white teeth and flexed her wings, "Wasn't that Methos story fun to write?" She asked sweetly. I narrowed sleepy eyes in her direction and uselessly attempted to bat her away.

"You mean the one that ended up taking years to finish because you kept having family emergencies?" I countered, throwing off my blankets and plodding to the bathroom.

"I won't do that this time I promise."

I paused while reaching for the toothpaste. "This time?"

"Yeah, I need you to write another story."

At that moment a perfectly plausible first line popped into my head.

"Don't do that!"

She batted her eyes innocently at me while I brushed my teeth and concentrated on thinking about where to start cleaning my apartment. I got dressed and went about the business of gathering supplies for Saturday morning cleaning, ignoring my musey shadow.

"Wouldn't it be fun if Methos…" I cut her off in mid sentence with a warning brandish of my fly swatter.

"I told you I wasn't going to write for you again. My knowledge of X-men is just about spent."

"It doesn't have to have mutants you know…"

A story line began to form in my mind but I squashed it promptly.

"No."

I reached under the sink for my bottle of bleach and yelped in surprise when an exposed nail nicked, no… gouged, my thumb. A soft tinkle of laughter sounded behind me.

Several rolls of gauze and tape later I sat on my couch glaring at Muse. Bodily harm put an end to my sanitizing hopes for the day. As talented as I am elsewhere, I am not an ambicleaner and require my right hand for rag usage, silly Muse.

"No one even reviews the silly thing anymore." I stated.

She raised one questioning eyebrow and I retrieve my laptop to prove my point.

"See right there, there's no…" I stopped. Lo and Behold. A new review was in my inbox. "Surely they are the only one though…" I quickly logged in to and clicked on stats. Under the alerts list there was the number 36.

36.

Thirty six people still hoped that I would update. 36 people.

I was agog.

Muse was smug.

"Fine." I sighed and settled more comfortably into the couch with my laptop poised and ready, "I will write another story for you. But under one condition…" I pulled out my rope and smiled. Muse gulped.

"You aren't going anywhere."

Methos Rides Again: 2007.

Special thanks to…

Ainslee, Arathi, Arkaidy, Bricklyn, Bumpkin, Ciupacapra, GardenViper, Hessel, Jezz Redfern2, KFF, Kitty2228, Luc Star, Malabud, Mercurial1, Morrolan, Neko Youkai 13, P.L.S., Queen of the Paperclips, SADDAMINSANE, Schuikichiro, Shadow Vision, Sin Piedad, Siobhan Torrin, TEPE3A, Thaia, Twilight Unicorn, Violeta Ash, Yllyana, cathylynn, hypertyper47, iheartflan, mad-catt, majorleni, meritaten, shadow3418, tamaralm

Thanks for keeping up hope!

Rachel


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